Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY

Price Increase

Sir Herbert Williams: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether the 4s. increase in the price of coal will increase the net receipts of the colliery companies or whether it will be paid into the Coal Charges Fund.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): The whole of the increase will be paid into the Coal Charges Account.

American Report

Major Thorneycroft: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he has received the final Report of the American Mining Section of the Combined War Resources Board upon the coal industry in this country.

Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir.

Major Thorneycroft: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman make a copy of the Report available in the Library?

Major Lloyd George: I cannot say yet.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it not true that this Report contains a very serious indictment of the whole organisation of the mining industry in this country; that it exonerates the miners from all blame; and, in view of its importance in regard to the future of British industry in general, is it not desirable that hon. Members should be acquainted with the facts?

Major Lloyd George: At the moment the position is not quite what my hon. Friend suggests. A summary has been issued, by agreement on both sides, that is, between the Americans and ourselves. My hon. Friend will appreciate that we are not the only parties to this Report. Up to date the agreement has been to issue a summary, and that has been done.

Major Thorneycroft: Whatever this Report may or may not contain, is it not desirable that we should have it? What conceivable objection is there to making the whole Report and not a summary available, so that those interested in this very important matter of coal can have the benefit of seeing the views of experts?

Major Lloyd George: I am prepared to consider that. I only want to repeat that it is not a matter which is in my hands alone. This is a Report which applies to both sides of the Atlantic and at the moment the agreement is that we should only publish a summary. I am prepared to look into the matter but at the moment I cannot say any more.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman agree to publish such part of the Report as refers exclusively to the organisation of the British mining industry, and we will concern ourselves with our own business and let the Americans themselves look after theirs?

Major Lloyd George: It is American business as well as ours, but I am prepared to consider the matter. I repeat that it is not a matter for us alone.

Mr. Shinwell: I beg to give notice that at the first opportunity I shall raise this very serious matter.

Liberated Italy (Requirements)

Major Thorneycroft: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power, what have so far been the requirements of liberated Italy for coal; and how far these have been met from British and how far from American sources.

Major Lloyd George: Although a considerable tonnage of coal has been required for the needs of the Allied Forces in Italy, both for their own consumption and for use on railways, public utility plants and industries necessary to military operations, very little coal has been shipped into Italy for civilian use. It


would not be in the public interest to give figures of total shipments into the Italian theatre, but I can inform my hon. and gallant Friend that no coal has been sent there from this country since January. All the requirements have been met from the Sardinian mines, which are being operated under Allied military control, from South Africa, India and the United States.

Exports

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is now prepared to publish the statistics of British coal exports for the years since the war.

Major Lloyd George: As my hon. and gallant Friend will know, figures of the total quantity of coal shipped as exports and foreign bunkers from 1938 to the end of the first quarter of 1944 were given in Table 23 of my Statistical Digest {Command Paper 6538).

Mr. A. Edwards: If I put down a Question, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say how much of that coal has been paid for, and how much has not been paid for?

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether exports of British coal to the Argentine are still continuing; and whether it is estimated that a demand for British coal is likely to follow the termination of hostilities.

Major Lloyd George: The answer to the first part of the Question is "No, Sir." With regard to the second part, I anticipate that there will be a demand for British coal, but the extent to which it will be possible to meet that demand will depend upon the supply position.

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster: Is the reason for our non-export of coal to the Argentine at present, lack of shipping or lack of coal?

Major Lloyd George: I should think that the best answer would be—a combination of the two.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman be careful to see that we do not surrender all the advantages we formerly possessed in the export of coal to the Argentine?

Major Lloyd George: Of course not. I regard that as an extremely important part of our post-war position, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that the question of present supply does come in.

United Nations Forces {Consumption)

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will state the consumption of coal by the Armed Forces of the United Nations in Great Britain during the coal year 1943–44.

Major Lloyd George: I regret that, as stated in the Statistical Digest recently issued by my Ministry, I am precluded on security grounds from giving figures of the total consumption of coal by the Armed Forces of the United Nations in this country during the last coal year.

Mr. Molson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is in a position to estimate the tonnage of British coal which will be required for the Armed Forces of the United Nations operating on the Continent of Europe in the coal year of 1944–45.

Major Lloyd George: Estimates of the coal which will be required from this country for operational needs on the Continent of Europe form part of my supply programme for the current coal year. My hon. Friend will realise that I could not on security grounds state to what these estimates amount.

Mr. Molson: Will the Minister say whether he thinks that the conditions this winter are going to be easier or worse than they were last winter, having regard to the operations on the Continent of Europe?

Major Lloyd George: They certainly will not be any easier because we have to meet the requirements for operational purposes—they certainly will not be easier than last winter.

Mr. Thorne: When the right hon. Gentleman exports coal, what does he get back in exchange?

Output

Mr. Molson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what steps he proposes to take in view of the fact that the output of coal has dropped by 100,000 tons a week and that the price of coal to the domestic consumer has risen by 4s. a ton.

Major Lloyd George: I am taking all the measures I can on the lines indicated in my speech to the House on 13th July last, to increase output and to reduce consumption by securing greater economy and better use of fuel. I regret to say, however, that the increase of output, which we were entitled to expect from the Wages Agreement of April last, has not materialised. Since then output of coal has fallen materially. Output per man has fallen by 5 cwts. per week mainly owing to an increase of 25 per cent. in voluntary absenteeism. Although there have been no regional stoppages of work there are still every week a large number of local and unofficial stoppages. If the present unsatisfactory rate of output continues, there will be a serious risk both of interference with, the war effort and of hardship in many households this winter. It is therefore of vital importance that all persons in the mining industry should improve output during the critical winter that lies ahead. The only real and immediate remedy for the position lies in their hands.

Mr. Molson: Are we to understand then that the Minister is not proposing himself to take any steps to deal with the situation he has now outlined?

Major Lloyd George: That really, if I may say so, is rather an unfair statement, because a good many steps have been taken. My hon. Friend ought to be aware, if he listened to the Debate on 13th July, that steps have been taken, but a great number of those steps will take a very long time before they come into fruition.

Captain Duncan: Is the Minister aware that the miners are liable to lose the goodwill of the consumers in this country?

Mr. Shinwell: Am I to understand from what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman says in his reply, that the whole of the blame for reduced output is to be placed on the shoulders of the miners; does he not think that he should look in some other directions; and would he not find some information in the Report of the American Section of the Combined Board?

Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend must not be too touchy on these things. The figures I gave him were only for the six months since the Wages Agreement,

compared with the same six months last year, and during that period the day-to-day production per man has dropped by five cwts. That can be remedied and the remedy for that lies largely in the hands of the miners, and he knows that that is true.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: Is the Minister aware that the main problem is that of the increasing age and exhaustion of the men, and that it is no good flogging a tired horse?

Major Lloyd George: I might be prepared to believe that if it were not for the fact that the highest rate of absenteeism is among the younger age groups.

Mr. Colegate: Do not the facts that the Minister states point clearly to the necessity of restoring the disciplinary powers of managers?

Mr. Bowles: How much profit has gone to the shareholder?

Major Lloyd George: In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate), he knows perfectly well that the Essential Work Order must remain, because it is the basis of our war effort; and if you are to restore the full disciplinary powers of managers to the sanction of dismissal, you also will have to restore to the men freedom of movement in the industry.

Mr. J. J. Lawson: Is it not a fact that voluntary absenteeism is considerably below what it was in pre-war time, on the statistics which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself has given to the House?

Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend will know better than I do that there are certain coalfields which in peacetime work only a few days in the week, but there has been a really quite serious increase in the last six months of voluntary absenteeism. While I appreciate his point about the pre-war position, there has been a definitely serious increase, as I say.

Mr. J. J. Lawson: But is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the figures show that voluntary absenteeism is not half what it was in pre-war time, according to his own figures?

Mr. Speaker: I think we had better get on.

Mechanisation

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what percentage of coalpits is now mechanised; and what is the approximate value of mechanical equipment introduced since 1st January, 1944, from British and American sources, respectively.

Major Lloyd George: There were 949 coal mines at which coal-cutting machines were in use during the year 1943 and 717 mines at which conveyors and loaders were in use. The percentages of the total number of coal mines at work during that year were 53 and 40 per cent. respectively. The approximate value of mechanical equipment delivered to collieries during the period 1st January to 31st August, 1944, was:
£1,027,900 British equipment, and £168,100 American equipment.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend confirm my own impression that the progress is very far from being satisfactory?

Major Lloyd George: I can assure my noble Friend that it is as fast as, under the circumstances, we can expect.

Mr. Colegate: Is it not a fact that almost every coal mine in this country is held up because of the failure of manufacturers to supply coal machinery on order at the present time?

Major Lloyd George: That has been the position, but there has been a tremendous improvement, largely since the Ministry's Mining Supplies Department came into being. The increased capacity available to these manufacturers is very much greater, and I am hopeful—indeed it has been the fact that the leeway has, to a great extent, been made up.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman if, in highly mechanised pits, employers are not able to get renewals for conveyors and so on, would not that have a tendency to reduce output?

Major Lloyd George: Certainly, Sir, but that has nothing to do with the previous question of my noble Friend. There is a difficulty in regard to conveyor belting, for instance, which we are largely overcoming and which in a very few months I hope will be completely overcome.

Factory space for making the machinery was taken over for munitions but a good deal has been restored to its original purpose and a great deal of leeway has been made up.

Mr. Kirkwood: Arising out of this Question, and other Questions which are always being put in regard to the mining industry of this country, does the Minister not think that the time has arrived to nationalise the mines?

PETROL ALLOWANCE

Mr. Hugh Lawson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if it is the intention of the Government to allow public-service vehicles to have as much fuel as is required to operate adequate services before any basic ration of petrol for private motor-cars is restored.

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is able to hold out any prospect of the restoration in the near future of basic petrol rations to residents in rural areas.

Major Lloyd George: I would refer my hon. Friends to the reply given last Tuesday to similar Questions.

Mr. Lawson: I do not think that reply covers this point exactly, but will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give an assurance that, if he has to allow fuel for private motor cars, he will give priority to public' service vehicles?

Major Lloyd George: It is pretty obvious in view of the difficulties in certain rural districts, and indeed in urban districts, that very high priority will have to be given to public service vehicles.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it not a fact that in rural districts public service vehicles are inadequate, and all the more so because of the influx of evacuees on account of flying bombs in urban areas; and further, is 'the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the position is very difficult in rural areas where tradesmen do not deliver, and where people are many miles from the towns and shops?

Major Lloyd George: I am very well aware of what my hon. and gallant Friend has just pointed out, and because of that we have, within the limits of the supply position, been as generous as we possibly


can in rural areas. Whenever relaxation is possible, there again very high priority will be given.

Miss Ward: Why is priority given to vehicles run on producer-gas?

Mr. Speaker: That is another question altogether.

DOMINIONS (POPULATION)

Mr. W. J. Brown: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can make any statement as to Government policy for increasing the British population in the Dominions.

The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans): I am not quite clear what the hon. Member has in mind. If he refers to measures designed to encourage an increase in the birth rate in the Dominions, that is a matter for the Dominions themselves. If he refers to migration from this country, the policy of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom has been stated on various occasions, the last being the statement by my Noble Friend in another place on the 24th May. I cannot to-day add anything to these statements except to say that the Government are at present in consultation with the Dominion Governments on the subject.

Mr. Brown: Could the hon. Gentleman give a rough estimate, of when he will be able to give us a full statement?

Mr. Emrys-Evans: No, Sir. I am afraid I am not able to do so. This matter depends on the result of our conversations with the Dominions.

Mr. Shinwell: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has just stated that because of a statement made by his Noble Friend in another place, he has nothing to add. Are we to understand that we must rely on statements made in another place, which in fact we cannot debate and question in this House? Is that the position?

Mr. Speaker: Statements made by Ministers in another place are official statements, and they are therefore ones of which we can take notice here.

Earl Winterton: Could not my hon. Friend give a slightly less official answer? Could he not say that it is the policy

of His Majesty's Government, in consultation with the Dominions, to do everything possible to bring about emigration to the Dominions? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he sits on that Bench constantly stone-walling every question which is put to him? It is hopeless!

Mr. Emrys-Evans: No, Sir. I did make a statement on this particular question in December on the lines which the Noble Lord desires now. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are in favour of a policy of emigration, but it must be carried out in close collaboration with the Dominions.

Mr. Petherick: Is my hon. Friend aware that there were a number of very good reports, both official and unofficial, presented to His Majesty's Government before the war? Would he cause a re-examination of all those reports to be made?

Mr. Emrys-Evans: Yes, Sir. All those reports are being re-examined at the present time, and conversations are taking place between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Governments of the Dominions.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Rubber Teats

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that mothers are compelled to purchase a bottle every time they desire to replace a teat; and whether he will arrange for a supply of teats sufficient to enable them to be sold separate from the bottles.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): This may be so in some cases, but as my right hon. Friend said in reply to Questions last week, arrangements have been made for a large increase in the output of teats, and supplies independent of bottles will be reaching the shops in increasing quantities very soon.

Mr. Hogg: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend see to it that the condition imposed by a shopkeeper, that the purchase of a teat must be accompanied by the purchase of a bottle, is made illegal in view of the increased quantity of teats?

Captain Waterhouse: As soon as a sufficiency of teats is available in the shops, under Section g of the Goods and Services (Price Control) Act it will then be illegal for anybody to make it a condition that the purchaser of a teat must buy a bottle. At the present moment, however, it is fairly obvious and common sense, I think, that if a man only has enough teats to match his bottles, he shall sell the two together and not separately.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether his Department are advised by any woman at all?

Captain Waterhouse: I am happy to say that we have the advice of several ladies.

Viscountess Astor: But are they married women?

Mr. J. J. Lawson: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has told us that these teats are going to be supplied very soon. Is he aware that we had that answer last week? How much longer have we to wait?

Captain Waterhouse: We shall have to wait one week less than last week, quite obviously.

Viscountess Astor: The babies will not wait.

Mr. Murray: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that retailers cannot buy these things from the wholesalers at the present time?

Captain Waterhouse: My right hon. Friend has already explained that production has been increased, but it takes a certain length of time for the crude rubber to be turned into teats. They will be in the shops very soon.

Mr. Thorne: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that when I was a baby there were no teats at all? I used to have a sugar bag put in my mouth.

Export Trade

Mr. Colegate: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to increase the number of licences for the export of British manufactures.

Captain Waterhouse: At present exports are being limited mainly to meeting the essential needs of Empire and Allied countries. These restrictions will be relaxed as rapidly as the claims of war production and other essential work, including the

supply of the needs of our own civilians, permit.

Mr. Colegate: Does not my right hon. and gallant Friend think that the time has come when exporters might be given some idea of the plans of the Government in this matter?

Captain Waterhouse: It is clearly impossible for the Board of Trade, or for any hon. Member of this House, to know exactly how this war is going to end. We are at present in touch with exporters and are giving them what information we can, but we are not prophets.

Mr. A. Edwards: Is it not time that the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade came to this House and gave an account of his Department's post-war plans?

Viscountess Astor: Who is the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade?

Sir H. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, having regard to the fact that the Trade Returns of the United Kingdom are no longer published, he will arrange to place in the Library abstracts of the Trade Returns of the U.S.A. and of other countries which continue to publish such returns, in order that hon. Members may be able to ascertain the major facts of British overseas trade.

Captain Waterhouse: I propose to publish shortly particulars of our export trade in 1943 and preceding years.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many requests he has received from British manufacturers to receive facilities similar to those now available to American manufacturers under Mr. Donald Nelson's declaration to prepare for peacetime production; how many have been granted; and what progress has been made.

Sir George Schuster: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has made any survey of the requirements of British industries interested in export trade with a view to considering whether allocations of personnel and materials can now be allowed for the preparation of designs, manufacture of samples and filling of initial export orders on a scale which would be large enough to enable British manufacturers to keep in touch with potential customers, but would


not appreciably diminish production for war purposes.

Mr. Hogg: On a point of Order. Question 21 was originally addressed, Mr. Speaker, to the Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade. I was informed that the President of the Board of Trade was interested in policy, and that the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade was his assistant. Why should I have an answer from my right hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary who is not concerned with exports?

Mr. Speaker: That has nothing to do with me; it is a matter for the Ministry itself.

Captain Waterhouse: Facilities to make various preparations for peacetime production are now being granted, provided that the work can be done without impeding war production. Since the statement which my right hon. Friend made on this subject on 18th July, applications have been received from about 160 manufacturers in a dozen different industries, rather more than half of these have already been granted, and very few have been rejected.

Mr. Hogg: May we have an assurance on behalf of the President of the Board of Trade that proper liaison is kept between my right hon. and gallant Friend's Department and the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade in connection with this important matter?

Captain Waterhouse: I can assure my hon. Friend that my two right hon. Friends in this, as in other matters, work hand in glove.

Sir G. Schuster: Did my right hon. and gallant Friend say that he was also answering Question No. 30 with Question No. 21?

Captain Waterhouse: Yes, Sir.

Sir G. Schuster: Then may I ask him whether he appreciates that there is a very widespread feeling of dissatisfaction at the way in which applications for small facilities for export orders are now being treated; and, further, that manufacturers in this country wish to be satisfied that the Board of Trade, which is supposed to look after their interests in the post-war period, is properly representing their case? It is not enough merely to wait

for applications to be received and then hand out delaying replies to Questions in this House.

Captain Waterhouse: I am very well aware that there is considerable and healthy anxiety in the country about the position of export trade, but I am not aware that traders are blaming the Board of Trade for the hold-up because I think they realise, by and large, that the conditions which limit exports now are outside the control of the Board.

Mr. Graham White: Are permits being given in general, or being limited by the countries to which it is proposed eventually to export goods, when they are made? Is the Minister aware that the delay which has been referred to will only be endurable if it is evident that his Department are doing everything they possibly can to put the matter in train?

Captain Waterhouse: I am sorry that my Department is unendurable to my hon. Friend. We are doing our best in this difficult matter, but there is a definite limitation on the countries to which exports can be allowed.

Sir Patrick Hannon: Can my right hon. and gallant Friend say definitely when a statement will be made setting forth the policy of His Majesty's Government, when replies will be made to all the points which have been put forward by delegation after delegation, so that the country will know where we stand in this matter?

Captain Waterhouse: I do not see how it will be possible to make a general statement about the position of overseas trade until the war with Germany has been concluded.

Mr. A. Edwards: Is the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade consulted on this matter?

Captain Waterhouse: He is consulted on all matters which have to do with overseas trade.

Mr. Hogg: In view of the unsatisfactory position that is revealed by this series of answers, I give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Miss Ward: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish a list of industries connected with the export trade for which technical man-power as


well as labour will have priority as soon as the military situation permits.

Captain Waterhouse: No, Sir. I am in constant touch with my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Labour, on the whole question of providing labour, including technical workers, for export as well as essential home trade. But I do not propose to publish any such priority list as my hon. Friend suggests.

Miss Ward: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware what grave disquiet there is among exporters as to the complete lack of policy? Is he ever going to answer any Question at all?

Captain Waterhouse: I thought my hon. Friend was asking not about policy but about priorities.

Commander Agnew: Is the Department, in conjunction with the Ministry of Labour and National Service, compiling a list of priorities?

Captain Waterhouse: We have this matter very carefully in hand and at the right time the necessary information will be available.

Commander Agnew: May I have a further and more explicit answer? I asked whether my right hon. and gallant Friend was compiling a list of priorities.

Captain Waterhouse: No lists are being compiled for publication.

Sir G. Schuster: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent British exporters are prohibited from corresponding with former overseas customers on commercial matters; and if all enquiries for British goods from such customers have to be submitted to the Joint Production Board in Washington.

Captain Waterhouse: There are no prohibitions on commercial correspondence except those arising from the Trading with the Enemy Act, but some delay must elapse before communication by mail or telegraph can be re-established with liberated territories. The answer to the second part of the Question is "No, Sir."

Sir G. Schuster: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend realise that this is one of the matters on which widespread misapprehension exists? It is very desirable that a frank statement should be made on the subject.

Captain Waterhouse: If my hon. Friend has any specific cases to which he can draw my attention, I shall be glad to look into them.

Cotton Industry (Double Shift Working)

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that the majority of persons employed in the Lancashire cotton industry are females, he considered the domestic, social and physical implications involved before he recommended the introduction of double shift working in that industry.

Captain Waterhouse: An extension of double shift working is recommended on the ground that without it the expense of installing modern machinery in many cases would not be justified. This recommendation is, of course, designed to benefit operatives as well as employers. There is no question of expecting all workers to change to this method of working without regard to their domestic, social and physical circumstances.

Mr. Davies: Does not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think it is a very grave matter indeed for a Government Department to suggest de-grading the conditions of employment, especially of women workers?

Captain Waterhouse: There is no question of de-grading the conditions of anybody, but it is absolutely essential that expensive machinery should be used to the best advantage.

Mr. Burke: Seeing that operatives for one shift cannot be obtained, how does the Minister propose to get operatives for two shifts?

Captain Waterhouse: When the war ends, I hope there will be operatives for both shifts.

Sir Frank Sanderson: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that the introduction of the double shift principle is one of the most practical propositions which he has put forward?

Blankets and Sheets

Mr. Daggar: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the general complaint regarding the shortage of blankets and sheets; and whether, in view of the restricted supply during the war period, he will consider an increase in the quantity now available.

Captain Waterhouse: In recent months steps have been taken progressively to increase the production of sheets, and as my right hon. Friend informed my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) on Tuesday last, arrangements have now been made for material hitherto used for blackout cloth to be switched to sheets. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply, at my request, has arranged for a substantial number of cotton-warp blankets to be manufactured and these should be coming forward shortly. I shall take every opportunity of increasing supplies of sheets and blankets, but at present there is no spare labour and capacity in the cotton and wool textile industries.

Mr. Daggar: Do I understand that arrangements will be made to vary the coupon requirements? It is no good placing sufficient sheets and blankets on the market unless the coupons are made available.

Captain Waterhouse: Neither sheets nor blankets have ever been on coupons.

Sir H. Williams: Do I understand that the white sheets are to be mainly reserved for members of His Majesty's Government, and the wet blankets for the manufacturers?

Wireless Sets (Components)

Mr. Craik Henderson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will arrange for spare parts for wireless sets being made available in larger quantities in view of the fact that new sets cannot be produced and large numbers of existing sets are useless owing to small parts not being available.

Captain Waterhouse: I am glad to say that the improvement in the supply of components is continuing and the quantities available should be sufficient for the reasonable maintenance of sets in use. The supply of most types of valves is adequate but some special types are still rather short. The new sets of standard design for the civilian market are now being delivered to the shops. If my hon. Friend will let me know of any particular shortages he has in mind, I will do what I can to help.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Has the Minister seen the new utility radio sets? The components of the set are very good and

efficient, but the outside appearance is cheap and nasty. Can he do something about them?

Captain Waterhouse: I do not at all agree with that description. I have examined the sets and I liked them. I think they are very good, practical sets.

Alarm Clocks

Mr. Craik Henderson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take steps to provide for the supply of alarm clocks, having regard to the acute shortage which causes inconvenience and adversely affects good time-keeping.

Captain Waterhouse: As I have previously stated, we depend at present almost entirely on imports for our supplies of alarm clocks. During the last twelve months large quantities have been imported from the United States and Canada and have been distributed here. Further supplies are on their way.

Mr. Henderson: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that it is impossible to obtain alarm clocks in retail shops in most parts of the country?

Captain Waterhouse: I am aware that there is difficulty but there is a trickle of alarm clocks coming into the country.

Mr. Woodburn: Are arrangements being made to get alarm clocks and watches from Switzerland as soon as communications are open?

Captain Waterhouse: That matter is being kept in view.

Mr. Petherick: Will my right hon. Friend supply an alarm clock to the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade?

Furniture (Hire Purchase)

Mr. Hugh Lawson: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the sale of furniture by hire purchase results in excessive costs to the purchaser, up to 150 per cent. being added to the manufacturers' costs; and what steps he proposes to prevent this exploitation.

Captain Waterhouse: The maximum charge which may be made for hire purchase facilities is 20 per cent, of the cash price of the furniture less the customer's deposit. If my hon. Friend knows of cases where more than this has been charged, I should be glad to have particulars.

Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this figure of 150 per cent. was given by the Secretary of State for Scotland last week, and what does he propose to do about it?

Captain Waterhouse: I was not aware of that, but I will have inquiries made.

Board of Trade (Staff)

Sir G. Schuster: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will furnish a list of the new appointments which have been made to strengthen the staff of his department with a view to enabling him to undertake the responsibilities that will fall upon him in accordance with the Government's White Paper on Employment Policy.

Captain Waterhouse: Early this year Sir William Palmer, who was then serving in the Ministry of Production, was appointed Principal Industrial Adviser to the Board of Trade. The Control of Factory and Storage Premises is the department of the Board mainly concerned with the White Paper proposals for the balanced distribution of industry, and its staff has already been and is being further strengthened. The Regional Staff of the Board of Trade has also been strengthened in a number of regions. Further appointments, including, the possibility of transfers from the Supply Departments, are under consideration.

Mr. Bowles: Is it not clear from the three day Debate that we had that the House is not prepared to authorise the Government to go forward with this policy? Why have the Government proceeded with it?

Captain Waterhouse: I do not agree at all. I believe that the House of Commons gave the authorisation.

Sir H. Williams: Was not the Motion specifically drawn so that it did not involve endorsement?

Oral Answers to Questions — ECONOMIC WARFARE

Enemy Occupied Countries (Food Supplies)

Mr. Oldfield: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare if he is now in a position to report whether the altered circumstances in Europe enable his Ministry to

permit the shipment of relief foodstuffs for distribution under neutral control in the countries still occupied by the enemy.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare (Mr. Dingle Foot): His Majesty's Government and the United States Government are now considering whether, in view of the altered circumstances in Europe, any change is desirable in their present blockade policy with respect to those Allied territories still in enemy occupation. I am not yet, however, in a position to make a statement on this subject.

Germany (Metal Supplies)

Mr. Graham White: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare if he has made any estimate of the losses in supplies of metal to Germany as a result of military events in recent months.

Mr. Foot: As the answer is a long one, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

My Department has made the following estimates of the enemy's recent losses of metals:

Iron:

As a result of active military operations in Lorraine and Luxembourg, the withdrawal of Swedish ships from trade with German ports and the closing of Swedish Baltic ports to German shipping, and the loss of supplies from Spain, it is estimated that the effective iron-in-ore supplies of the Reich have been reduced by 65 per cent. as compared with 1943. In addition, pig-iron manufacturing capacity to the extent of over 20 million tons (about 45 per cent. of the capacity available earlier in the year) has now been lost, as well as an equal tonnage of steel furnace capacity (representing about 40 per cent.).

Copper:

The enemy has recently lost contact with sources of copper ores at Bor in Yugoslavia and Outokumpu in Finland. while his supplies from Turkey and Spain have been cut off. The total intake of new metal has been reduced by about 60 per cent.

Lead:

By the loss of Yugoslavian and other Balkan mines supplies have been reduced by approximately 40 per cent., and the


position has been worsened by the loss of substantial amounts of scrap metal which were being collected in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Chrome:

Recent events in Yugoslavia appear to have brought to a standstill all rail traffic to Germany, thus depriving the enemy of his entire supplies of chrome, which since the loss of Turkish output have all been acquired from Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece.

Molybdenum:

The loss of ores from Finland, Greece and Yugoslavia represents about two-thirds of total supplies.

Bauxite:

The high grade deposits in the South of France are believed to have furnished 40 per cent. of German supplies, while the French aluminium industry accounted for 15 per cent. of the total aluminium produced in German Europe. With the seizure by Marshal Tito's forces of the island fringe of Yugoslavia the enemy's total loss of bauxite appears now to exceed 50 per cent.

Cobalt:

Shipments from Finland represented the sole German external source of supply and constituted about 80 per cent. of the total quantity with which the enemy has sustained that part of his synthetic oil production obtained by the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Wolfram:

Under the agreement negotiated by His Majesty's Government and the United States Government with the Spanish Government earlier this year, it was still open for the Germans to obtain small monthly consignments from Spain. These have now of course been cut off, together with any appreciable possibility of smuggling wolfram from the Iberian Peninsula. The only other sources open to the enemy were blockade-runners from the Far East and very small deposits in France. There is now no prospect of his obtaining supplies from either source.

Escaping Germans (Spanish Ships)

Mr. Horabin: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare what steps his Ministry is taking to prevent the escape from Europe of Nazi leaders and other German nationals on outward bound Spanish ships.

Mr. Foot: For the last two years His Majesty's Government has administered a system of passenger and crew control on all neutral ships sailing to or from European ports. As the House is aware, neutral ships, whether inward or outward bound, are not allowed to pass through our controls without a ship navicert, and this document is in no case granted until the list of passengers and crew has been approved by our Consular authorities at the port of embarkation. In recent weeks every outward bound Spanish ship has been required, as a condition of her ship navicert, to call at a British contraband control base, where we can satisfy ourselves that no unauthorised persons are on board.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Canteen Arrangements, Italy

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Secretary of State for War what N.A.A.F.I. or canteen arrangements are available for British troops in Italy; and why they compare unfavourably with those available for Dominion and American troops.

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Secretary of State for War what arrangements are made by N.A.A.F.I. for the refreshment and entertainment of British troops in Rome and other Italian cities; and how such arrangements compare with those made for Dominion and American troops.

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): I am glad to have the opportunity of removing certain misunderstandings which appear to exist on this subject. On 10th August N.A.A.F.I. opened a club in Rome capable'of accommodating 5,000 troops a day. It houses cafeterias, snack bars, soda fountains, games rooms, music rooms, lounges, a gift shop, a library, a barber's shop, a photographer's, orchestras, cinemas and other amenities. There is also a chapel and a chaplain. A club has also been opened in the Royal Palace at Naples and it provides similar facilities on an even larger scale. The welfare (as opposed to catering) side of these clubs is in the hands of members of the W.V.S. and having seen both clubs for myself within the last month or five weeks I can testify to the admirable work which is being done. Indeed neither club has anything to fear from comparison with those provided for Dominion and American troops. There


are smaller clubs and restaurants in other Italian towns and it is intended to open others, for example, in towns which have recently been captured, such as Florence and Ancona if it is found that they are required. Incidentally, in addition to the N.A.A.F.I. Club there are in Rome other clubs for British soldiers, notably one run by the Y.M.C.A., and there are British restaurants run by the Army where soldiers can get meals without impinging on civilian supplies.

Mr. Hogg: While greatly reassured by my right hon. Friend's reply, may I ask if he saw the letter that appeared in "The Times" during the Recess; and if things are as good as his reply would indicate, how could such a detailed series of charges appear in the Press from, apparently, an entirely bona fide source?

Sir J. Grigg: That I cannot understand.

Sir G. Jeffreys: While very much reassured by my right hon. Friend's reply may I ask if he is aware that there is a feeling among the troops in Italy that they are rather in a backwater and are not considered to be, so to speak, on a par with the troops fighting in North-Western Europe; and will he make certain that the utmost publicity is given to the fact that the arrangements are as good for them as for Dominion and American troops?

Sir J. Grigg: I have answered the second part of the question. I found no impression among the troops in Italy that they were a forgotten Army.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: While I would not question in any way the efficiency and the wonderful organisation of clubs in Italy, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us something about N.A.A.F.I. supplies to troops in advanced positions in the forward line? Will he tell us for instance about beer and cigarette supplies and other things which are very important for troops in advanced positions?

Sir J. Grigg: That does not arise out of the Question, which deals with the back areas, but perhaps the hon. Member will put a question down.

Coastal Areas (Mine Risks)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the anxiety created in the Sussex resorts by the statement issued to

the Press by the South-East Area Command, to the effect that the risk to life from mines on the South Coast might continue for years; and if he will institute an inquiry as to the responsibility for placing mines in unrecorded places.

Sir J. Grigg: Many minefields were laid in a great hurry after the evacuation from Dunkirk, but I know of no case where a record of such fields was not kept. All these areas are now being searched and it is not until the authorities are entirely satisfied that every reasonable precaution has been taken to make the beaches safe that a clearance certificate is issued and the barriers removed. Even then, there may still be danger from mines which have been shifted from their original positions by the action of the sea and which have not been detected. The statement to which my hon. Friend refers merely acknowledged this regrettable but, I hope, remote possibility.

Sir H. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend answer the Question why mines were placed in unrecorded places, as distinct from unrecorded areas? Have any records been kept of the numbers that have been put in?

Sir J. Grigg: They have not been put in unrecorded places.

Sir H. Williams: May I put the specific question with regard, not to unrecorded areas, but to unrecorded places?

Sir J. Grigg: I do not suppose that the position of every one of the hundreds of thousands of mines was marked by a stake, but the general areas of the minefields were marked.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is impossible to lay extensive minefields and to know the exact spot at which every mine has been placed?

Discharged Soldiers (Civilian Clothing)

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War what issue of civilian clothing a soldier now invalided receives; and how this issue compares with the outfit the Government is prepared to give on general demobilisation.

Sir J. Grigg: The discharged soldier at present receives a civilian suit, cap, collar and tie and studs but after r6th October he will receive the same clothing


as will be given to men released after the end of the war with Germany, namely a civilian suit, hat, shirt with two collars, tie, one pair shoes, two pairs socks, raincoat, studs and cuff links.

Sir A. Knox: Can this be made retrospective?

Sir J. Grigg: I do not think that that is practicable.

Commander Agnew: Does this arrangement apply to officers?

Mr. Tom Brown: Is the Minister aware that many soldiers are being discharged without any clothing at all—[Laughter]. I appreciate the joke, but there are cases of constituents who have been discharged without any civilian clothing.

Sir J. Grigg: I think that in that case they must have elected to take the, money grant instead. If the hon. Member has cases where men have had no grant or clothes I shall be glad to look. into them.

Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman has already been notified of cases of that type.

Lost Parcels (Compensation)

Mr. Douglas: asked the Secretary of State for War whether facilities are given to men to whom duty-free customs labels are issued to register their parcels, or what redress they have if these parcels are lost.

Sir J. Grigg: The answer to the first part of the Question is, "No, Sir." If a parcel is lost, compensation is paid subject to the conditions and limits laid down in regulations of the Army Postal Service, and the commanding officer may issue another free label.

Home Guard

Mr. Petherick: asked the Secretary of State for War on what date the orders or instructions regarding the reversion to voluntary status of the Home Guard were in the hands of the battalion commanders; and on what date the relative orders or instructions were given to the B.B.C. and the Press, respectively.

Sir J. Grigg: The military situation on the Continent warranted a relaxation of Home Guard duties and orders were issued to Commander-in-Chief Home Forces on 6th September. I broadcast a

message to the Home Guard on the same evening which was reported in the Press on the following day. There was ample time for all orders to be in the hands of battalion commanders before 11th September, the effective date of the relaxation.

Mr. Petherick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these orders were not in the hands of battalion commanders until several days after they saw them in the Press and heard them on the B.B.C.? Will he take steps in future to see that any such orders are issued in the form of A.C.I's before the Press and the B.B.C. get them?

Sir J. Grigg: That is a very desirable general rule, but not one of universal application.

1939–43 STAR

Mr. Molson: asked the Prime Minister whether he has been able to arrive at any conclusions regarding the issue of the 1939–43 Star to personnel serving in A.A. Command during the Battle of Britain, from August, 1940 to June, 1941.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on 26th September last in reply to Questions on this subject.

Major Sir Ronald Ross: When my right hon. Friend is considering these matters, will he bear in mind that the victors of our first victory, the aircrews in the Battle of Britain, have so far received no distinctive mark for their unique services, but have only the ordinary medals?

The Prime Minister: I doubt very much whether that is the case. I think they certainly have the Silver Rosette, but I will inquire about it.

Sir R. Ross: May I respectfully suggest that they might have something which is really distinctive, such as a pair of pilot's wings in miniature, as their services were quite unexampled?

The Prime Minister: I think that all these matters will be better reviewed when we come nearer to the end of the war. Later on I am answering another Question.

GENERAL ELECTION (OVERSEAS FORCES)

Mr. Hugh Lawson: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement showing by what processes members of the fighting forces stationed overseas at the time of any general election will be enabled to inform themselves of the main political issues raised at the election and of the names of the candidates for whom they or their proxies can vote.

The Prime Minister: Personnel—that is jargon for officers and men—are able to keep themselves informed of the broad political trends by listening to the wireless and by reading the ordinary newspapers and journals. At the time of a General Election the information given in these ways on political questions will no doubt increase considerably. The short interval between nomination day and polling day will in most cases preclude personnel overseas from receiving in time literature specially prepared in support of particular candidates. This was one of the reasons for the provision made in the Parliament (Elections and Meeting) Act for facilities for voting by proxy.

Mr. Lawson: Does not the latter part of the reply indicate that special steps should be taken to see that those whom we in this House have taken such trouble to see are registered are given the opportunity of getting to know what the issues of the election are?

The Prime Minister: Everything possible will be done, subject to the limitations of time and space.

Sir H. Williams: Was Mr. J. B. Priestley's symposium last night the first part of the Common Wealth campaign?

Mr. Shinwell: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the Government know what the issues at the next General Election are likely to be?

The Prime Minister: I should think that broadly we can see how matters are shaping themselves. As to the broadcast referred to, I was fortunate in having other engagements at the time.

Mr. Bellenger: Does my right hon. Friend realise that, in order to get the proxies back to the registration officers from men serving overseas, especially those in distant theatres, they will have to

send them far in advance of any election, and that that will mean they can only give their intention to vote for a party? Is that what the Prime Minister wants, rather than that they should vote for a particular candidate?

The Prime Minister: I cannot think that an election is imminent in the sense of what you call impending, but I can assure the House that no one is more anxious than I am that every facility possible and practicable, having regard to the fact that fighting is still going on on an increasing scale, should be given if possible to the troops to understand what are the issues for which the opposing candidates stand and for recording their votes on the largest possible scale. That is our intention. It would be disgraceful if, through any lack of care and forethought on our part, these men, who have, in my opinion, the first right to express an opinion, were deprived of their opportuunity to do so. I say all this under the reservation which may be imposed by the force of physical events.

Mr. Lawson: In view of the impossibility of continuing such an important matter by question and answer, I beg to give notice that I will raise it on the Adjournment.

WOMEN'S SERVICES (POST-WAR REORGANISATION)

Miss Ward: asked the Prime Minister whether it is intended that in the post-war organisation of the services women are to be given any part.

The Prime Minister: This matter is under consideration, but I do not expect that it will be possible to announce any decision for a considerable time.

Miss Ward: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this matter has been under consideration for a very long time, and that it is an important matter which ought to be decided before the war is over?

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES

Man-Power (Reallocation)

Wing-Commander James: asked the Prime Minister what age and service groups it is anticipated that it will prove possible to release from the Forces upon the conclusion of hostilities in the European theatre.

The Prime Minister: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the recently published Command Paper 6548 giving the Government's proposals for reallocation of man-power, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. John Dugdale: Will the right hon. Gentleman give special consideration to those men who have been serving long periods overseas by counting one year's service overseas as equal to two years' service at home?

The Prime Minister: All this is dealt with in the White Paper, and I understand there is to be a Debate upon it.

War Gratuities

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Prime Minister whether a bonus will be given to members of the Armed Forces on demobilisation in order to place them in the same position as civilians who have saved out of the comparatively high wages being earned in industry; and what will be the approximate amount of this bonus.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Prime Minister when an announcement will be made regarding the rates of war gratuities to be paid to service personnel.

The Prime Minister: Proposals are being formulated for war gratuities for Service personnel, in addition to the other benefits set out in the recent White Paper on reallocation of man-power (Cmd. 6548). I hope that an announcement will be made before long.

Post War Recruitment

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Prime Minister whether any consideration has been given to the conditions of service of our post-war military forces, and whether he will set up a committee to investigate existing methods of recruiting and administration and if necessary, to make recommendations for improvements.

The Prime Minister: These matters are being considered by the Service Departments, individually and in consultation, in the same way as other problems of reconstruction are being considered by the civil departments. These subjects are not new—there is a vast mass of knowledge, experience and example which has been accumulated, and I am sure there is no need to set up a special committee.

Mr. Bellenger: Does not my right hon. Friend recollect the recruiting for the Army before the war, when it did not produce anything like the number of soldiers desired; and will he personally consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War to ascertain how far any recruiting is being done now towards getting something like a professional postwar Army?

The Prime Minister: We shall have to decide the large question of whether there is to be compulsory national service after the war. We do not want a Committee to decide that. That has to be the decision of a Government which takes its fortunes and its fate in its hands.

LORD PRIVY SEAL (DUTIES)

Mr. Walter Edwards: asked the Prime Minister whether he can supply any information as to the purpose and the results of the Lord Privy Seal's recent visit to the U.S.A.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I would refer the hon. Gentleman to Cmd. 6555, which contains the text of the Agreement on Petroleum between the Governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, signed at Washington on 8th August by Mr. Stettinius, Acting Secretary of State, and by the Lord Privy Seal.

Mr. Walter Edwards: asked the Prime Minister if the Lord Privy Seal is still responsible for civil aviation policy, and whether his duties have been extended to cover other Government activities.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The Civil Air Transport Committee over which the Lord Privy Seal presided has now completed its inquiries and tendered its report. The Lord Privy Seal discharges any other duties assigned to him.

STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS

Lieut-Colonel Dower: asked the Prime Minister whether a review will be undertaken by all Government Departments of the respective Statutory Rules and Orders affecting them passed since the outbreak of hostilities and which are now current, with a view to their removal as soon as their purpose is no longer necessary.

The Prime Minister: It is the policy of His Majesty's Government that war-time Orders and Regulations should be revoked as and when they cease to be necessary, and, in pursuance of this policy, many Orders and Regulations made under Emergency Powers have already been revoked or modified. The matter is kept constantly under review, both by the Government and, I trust, by the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH AIRBORNE FORCES

Arnhem (Recognition)

Major C. S. Taylor: asked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government will consider recommending to His Majesty that some special honour or designation should be granted to the British Airborne Forces, in recognition of the heroic deeds at Arnhem.

Mr. Mack: asked the Prime Minister if the Government will recommend the grant of a special medal or some appropriate honour to the heroes of Arnhem.

The Prime Minister: I do not think that the award of a special medal would be appropriate. Indeed, were such special distinction to be considered for this very gallant episode it would have to be considered with many other noble and memorable battles and actions that have taken place and may yet take place, at sea and in the air, as well as on land.

Major Taylor: Would my right hon. Friend consider recommending the designation "Royal British Airborne Forces" or something similar; and may I point out that the wording of the Question has been slightly varied? The Question should have read "at Arnhem and elsewhere."

The Prime Minister: I think that addition would have reduced the Question to an even more questionable form.

Security Fund (Collection)

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: (By Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention had been drawn to the allegation that 12 men of the Airborne Division recently engaged in the Arnhem operation arrived at Salisbury Racecourse on Saturday last with collecting boxes inviting contributions to the Airborne Forces Security Fund; whether he has any information as to the officer who gave authority for this action;

whether the fund in question is recognised by his Department and what steps he proposes to take regarding an action which is deeply resented by many members of the Airborne Division at present in this country and must be repugnant to public opinion.

Sir J. Grigg: I have seen the newspaper account of the collection on Salisbury racecourse to which my right hon. Friend refers, and I have called for a report on the incident. I have not so far been able to discover who gave instructions for the collection_ The Airborne Forces Security Fund is registered under the War Charities Act. The War Office is not represented on its Board of Management, and the fund is and always has been completely outside its control. It is quite separate from the Regimental Funds of the individual regiments or corps represented in the Airborne Forces. There is no King's Regulation under which I can take any action in this mater. I can have my own opinion on the question of taste involved and can make it clear to those who are ultimately shown to be responsible for the incident. I will also consider whether a Regulation specifically prohibiting such methods can appropriately be made.

Mr. Bellenger: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a serving officer of high rank has his name associated with this fund, and may I ask whether the Secretary of State has any control over serving officers in these matters?

Sir J. Grigg: I really do not know that there is any reason in law why a serving officer should not he associated with a Fund which fulfils the conditions of the War Charities Act.

Mr. Greenwood: Would my right hon. Friend make it quite clear to the public that he, as Secretary of State for War, regards it as most reprehensible that within a few days of a great operation, and after my right hon. Friend had paid a great tribute to those who took part in it, men should go round making these begging collections with collecting boxes?

Sir J. Grigg: It was my purpose to express that view. If the weight of my feeling was not sufficiently expressed by my reply to this Question, my right hon. Friend's supplementary question has given me an opportunity to remedy it.

Earl Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend consult with his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the question whether the War Charities Act is at present a sufficiently efficacious measure to prevent the starting of war charities, often to the personal advantage of the person who starts them, which often conflict with other war charities or with the money which is provided out of public funds for a particular purpose?

Sir J. Grigg: I will certainly discuss that matter with the Home Secretary, whose business it is primarily.

Mr. A. Edwards: Would the Minister not go further and make it plain that the Government want to abolish all war charities?

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Speaker: We are getting a long way from the Question which was originally asked.

GERMANY (REPARATIONS AND INDEMNITIES)

Mr. Thorne: asked the Prime Minister whether the Government have considered with the Allies the amount of indemnity that the German Government will have to pay when they have been defeated and the question of reparations; and what was the total amount of indemnity and reparations which the German Government were called upon to pay at the end of the last war.

The Prime Minister: No decisions have as yet been reached by the Allies as to the question of the payment of reparations and indemnity by Germany. We have a considerable mass of experience on record. After the last war the German Government were called upon to pay a fixed annuity of £100,000,000 gold and a variable annuity equal to 26 per cent. of the value of German exports, together with further annuities the payment of which was postponed. As my hon. Friend is aware, these figures were afterwards modified and reduced almost to vanishing point. Also, loans of nearly £2,000,000,000 sterling were given to the Germans by the American, and to some extent by the British public, none of which were repaid, and on balance the Germans did better out of it than the others. We must not imitate that this time.

Mr. Thorne: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he has at any time seen an extract from "Foreign Affairs" of October, 1934? I will give it to him.

The Prime Minister: I am very much obliged.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Driberg: On a point of Order. May I draw attention to the fact that, for the last two Tuesdays running—the first two Tuesdays since we came hack from the Recess—the Ministerial rota at Question Time has been so arranged that Questions addressed to the War Office have come very late on the Order Paper, and that although Board of Trade Questions are of immense importance, Questions affecting the Army are of universal interest? May I put it to you respectfully, Mr. Speaker, that it is undesirable that War Office Questions should be taken very late on two Tuesdays running?

Sir Percy Harris: Is not part of the trouble the slow progress made at Question Time?

Mr. Speaker: We have made such slow progress to-day that I am not surprised we have not reached those Questions?

Mr. Thorne: Is it not a fact that there are so many supplementary questions asked?

Orders of the Day — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING [MONEY]

Resolution reported:

"That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for the acquisition and development of land for planning purposes, for amending the law relating to town and country planning, and for other purposes, it is expedient to authorise the following payments, that is to say:

A. (1) Payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of grants to local planning authorities in respect of loan charges on moneys borrowed by them for defraying, or contributing towards, the cost of acquiring or clearing—

(a) areas of extensive war damage, of amounts equal to such loan charges for two years, together with a proportion of the charges for further years up to eight, or in certain cases thirteen, being a proportion fixed by reference to the extent to which land in an area of extensive war damage remains by reason of war damage incapable of being brought into use for a substantial purpose and so as to provide a substantial return;
(b) land to be used for the re-location of population or industry from areas of extensive war damage or to be used as an open space or otherwise in an undeveloped state in substitution for land in such areas which is so used, of amounts equal to such loan charges for two years, together with half the charges for a further two years;
(c) land for highway purposes relating to such areas or to land to be used as aforesaid, of amounts equal to such loan charges for two years.

(2) Payment into the Exchequer of any sums received in pursuance of the said Act of the present Session in repayment of any such grants.

For the purposes of this paragraph—

(i) local planning authorities shall be deemed to have incurred loan charges on moneys belonging to them which are applied by them for defraying, or contributing towards, such cost as aforesaid as if the moneys had been borrowed on terms to be fixed by the Treasury;
(ii) land appropriated by local planning authorities for any purpose of the said Act of the present Session shall be treated as having been acquired for that purpose out of moneys belonging to them at a cost determined as mentioned in the said Act;
(iii) payments by local planning authorities in respect of restrictions on the development or use of land acquired by them subject to the restrictions shall be treated as a part of the cost of acquiring the land defrayed out of moneys belonging to them;


(iv) contributions towards the compensation payable on the refusal of the renewal of justices' licences in respect of land to be acquired by local planning authorities shall be treated as part of the cost of acquiring the land.

B. (1) Payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such sums as may be required to be paid into the Road Fund for the purpose of meeting the cost incurred by the Minister of War Transport of acquiring land for purposes relating to trunk roads as mentioned in the said Act of the present Sessions.

(2) Payment into the Exchequer of any contributions received by the said Minister from local planning authorities in respect of such cost.

C. Payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of expenses incurred by any government department under the said Act of the present Session in paying compensation to persons (including statutory undertakers) in respect of the extinguishment or vesting of or interference with rights over land or apparatus on land, in complying with conditions imposed in connection with the use of burial grounds, or in making payments to persons displaced in the carrying out of redevelopment.

D. Payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys under section four of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1938, which is attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session extending contributions under the said Act of 1938 to housing accommodation rendered necessary by displacements, occurring in the carrying out of redevelopment of land acquired under the said Act of the present Session, from houses unfit for human habitation.

E. Payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of remuneration and allowances to members of any tribunal constituted under the said Act of the present Session for the assessment of compensation under that Act to statutory undertakers."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

12.7 p.m.

Mr. Cocks: This will be the last opportunity the House will have to draw attention to the fact that the Money Resolution is drafted in such a way as to prevent the Bill ever becoming a satisfactory and comprehensive Measure. We remember that in the days of the blitz when London and other great cities were blasted, the Prime Minister made a speech in which he said that after the war they would rise up "beautiful, resplendent, phoenix-like from the ashes of death." Inspired by these magnificent words our local authorities developed plans for the reconstruction, for example, of Plymouth,

which are on exhibition within a few yards of this House, for the reconstructing of blitzed and blighted areas, with broad streets and vistas, and plenty of open spaces, with homes grouped around community centres and schools so placed that children would not have to cross streets to get to them, with special roads for fast traffic and so on. Then they waited for the Government to give the word to go. All they have got is this miserable and truncated Measure, which, as limited by the Money Resolution, has been hailed by all the land monopolists with screams of delight and has betrayed the hopes of the local authorities. As a result of this Money Resolution comprehensive local planning has been abandoned, because it only allows financial help to be given to the blitzed and not the blighted areas. Blitzed towns can re-erect their central space, they can re-erect municipal buildings. 'They can be assisted to build up a modern centre of the town, as in Plymouth, they can plan shopping and municipal centres on bold lines, but all these will be in the midst of dismal seas of ill-planned slms. As a result the site value of the slums surrounding them will rise so that it will be imposible for the local authority ever to clear them away.
In Plymouth, which is my native town, they have a plan by which the municipal and shopping centre will be allowed to be reconstructed under this Money Resolution, but attached to that plan, and making part of it, is a great processional avenue from North Road Station to the Hoe, giving a vista of the sparkling waters of Plymouth Sound and getting rid of a lot of mean streets. As a result of this Money Resolution the value of all that land, one cannot call it exactly slum land, but ill-planned land, will rise in value, and that road in the Plymouth programme can never be constructed; so I say that this Bill means the death of planning. For the glorious golden phoenix of the Prime Minister's oratory it substitutes the black carrion crow of the land monopolist and the bald-headed vulture of the land speculator. For the perfect civic statue which might have been so beautiful we have now this mutilated Venus de Milo or rather Venus de Morrison, a figure with no arms to act and no power to replan on comprehensive lines. I am glad there will still be an opportunity of bringing in the blighted areas as well as the blitzed areas so as to make our cities as beautiful


as Paris and as noble as the Athens of Pericles, and that will be after the next Election, when a Labour Government will have the opportunity of bringing in a Bill which will extend the powers of this Measure to include areas which are blighted as well as those which are blitzed.

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Designation of areas of extensive war damage, and of land needed for providing for replacements in redevelopment thereof.)

12.13 p.m.

Mr. Molson: I beg to move, in page 1, line 9, to leave out from "Where" to the end of line 20, and to insert:
in the opinion of a local planning authority it is necessary, for the purpose of dealing satisfactorily with extensive war damage in a part or parts of their area, to lay out afresh and redevelop as a whole land which has sustained war damage, including (if they deem it desirable) other land adjacent thereto, they may within five years from the commencement of this Act make application to the Minister of Town and Country Planning (in this Act referred to as "the Minister"), for an order under this section and if the Minister is satisfied that such redevelopment is desirable, he may make an order declaring all or any of the land specified in such applications to be land subject to compulsory purchase.

Mr. Reakes: Would it be possible for you, Major Milner, to give guidance as to what Amendments are likely to be called? I am sorry if I am premature, but the trouble is that there are so many important Amendments, and we would like to know whether they are to be called.

The Chairman: I am afraid it is not possible to offer general guidance, but if any hon. Member interested in any particular Amendment or Amendments will be good enough to see me, I will do my best to indicate what Amendments will be called.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: On a point of Order. This Amendment raises the point "within five years" which is to be the subject of

another Amendment later. Will this prevent the other Amendment from being called?

The Chairman: No.

Mr. Molson: This is a purely drafting Amendment. It takes words contained in the Bill and turns them round, in order to make clearer exactly what the procedure is intended to be. On the Second Reading of the Bill a number of questions were asked, and criticisms were made, to which the Minister replied by pointing out that the whole initiative in this matter rests with the local authorities. I have therefore tried to re-draft the Clause in what, I think, is a more logical order.

12.15 p.m.

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) for his assistance in attempting to improve the drafting of the Measure. I must say that when I read the Amendment at first I was at a loss to understand the precise change which its wording would import into the Bill. Having heard him, I see that his point is purely a drafting one and an attempt to improve the language of the Bill. It has the disadvantage that if it were accepted it would require a number of consequential Amendments throughout the whole structure of the Bill, in particular, in regard to that part of the Bill which gives the grant in aid of the acquisition of land for planning purposes. I will certainly consider whether it improves the drafting, but I hope my hon. Friend will let me stick for the present to the words which have been put in, after much care and thought, so that the Bill as it appears before the Committee will have a consistent aspect.

Earl Winterton: My right hon. Friend has said that the Bill has been drafted with much care and thought, but, if I may say so with respect, I should not have thought that was so, especially in this particular Clause. The Amendment seeks to alter the wording so as to carry out the intention of the Clause and to make it clear that it is the local authority and not the Minister which institutes and instigates, so to speak, the proceedings. The official draftsman has, if I may use a common phrase, put the cart before the horse by


putting in the Minister first. It may be that acceptance of the Amendment would require a number of drafting Amendments but I should have thought that, as the effect would be that the wording would carry out the effect of the Clause and it has been pointed out that the clear intention of the Clause is not sufficiently expressed in the original drafting, my right hon. Friend might be prepared to go a step further and say that if that is so he would accept the Amendment.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: Certainly, if the intention of the Clause is not carried out; but, in the subsequent Sub-sections, it is made clear that the impulse comes from the planning authority. I will certainly look into the matter again, and if the Amendment is an improvement of the drafting I will adopt it.

Mr. Molson: In view of the friendly undertaking given my right hon. Friend, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 1, line 12, after "damage," to insert:
or with conditions of bad lay-out and obsolete development, or with an area the development of which is needed for proper planning.
The Clause deals with the redevelopment of areas which have suffered extensive war damage and of land adjacent or contiguous thereto; but, in all the towns which have so suffered there is a great deal of other land which is badly in need of redevelopment and which ought to be considered, when the replanning of the town takes place. On this side of the Committee we have criticised this Measure from time to time because it does not provide the comprehensive planning which is desirable and necessary. We have taken the view that the planning proposed is piecemeal. It separates areas of extensive war damage from other areas which are equally in need of planning. Indeed, the finances of the Bill, which have been approved, appear to have the deliberate intention of dealing with areas of extensive war damage to the exclusion in practice of other areas.
Effective planning will not be possible unless the whole of an area is planned. Speaking on the Financial Resolution one

of my hon. Friends gave as an example the case of Plymouth. I have studied the proposed development of that city, and I agree with him that unless the Minister is extremely generous—and I am going to ask him about this later on—there is grave danger that its redevelopment will be hampered and it will not be possible to carry out the imaginative plan which has been prepared. Plymouth will be forced to deal with the area of extensive war damage together with such other land as is adjacent. The same will apply to mast of the other areas which have suffered extensive war damage, including London, where there are certainly areas which cannot be said to have so suffered. As the Bill stands, it will be necessary to apply to the Minister for a series of Orders in respect of half of London. In the case of some towns there may possibly be a dozen or more different areas of extensive war damage in respect of each of which separate Orders will have to be made, while other areas, which have not suffered extensive war damage, are just as much in need of redevelopment.
The purpose of the Amendment is to enable local authorities, if they desire, to deal with their areas comprehensively—areas of extensive war damage, areas which are in need of redevelopment—for reasons laid down in Section 9, and other land which is required for planning purposes as laid down in Section 10. It is proposed to permit all the different types of area to be combined in the representation to my right hon. Friend that he should make a redevelopment Order, a new type of Order which is not at present provided in the Bill. I submit that only in that way can we get effective planning. I have to face the argument that in any event it will be necessary to give preference to the areas of extensive war damage and that other areas will, therefore, have to wait. I am prepared to face the argument.
Suppose my right hon. Friend makes a Redevelopment Order as is laid down in the Amendment, and permits a local authority to acquire the whole of the land comprised within the Order; the local authority will still have to exercise a certain amount of priority in deciding which part of the area will have to be dealt with first. In practically all cases, the area of extensive war damage will naturally be selected to be dealt with first, but the local authority will be operating a com-


prehensive plan and will know that when they have finished one area they can proceed to the next as part of a plan, and not in piecemeal fashion. Moreover, they will have the certainty from the begining of knowing that they will be dealing with their whole area and will not run the risk that my right hon. Friend or his successor may not make an Order in respect of other areas in regard to bad lay-out or obsolete development.
I am satisfied, from all the plans that I have seen of blitzed towns, that unless it is possible to deal comprehensively with all land requiring redevelopment, regardless of the reason, there will not be effective planning. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will recognise that areas which have suffered extensive war damage will be replanned—the Bill provides for it; but that is not the replanning of the towns. Some such Amendment as I am moving is essential, for the purpose of dealing comprehensively with every area. I could have understood a Bill with powers limited to blitzed towns, and my right hon. Friend coming to the House and saying that for a number of years it would not be possible to deal with areas other than those which have been blitzed. If he had given local authorities of blitzed areas full powers to deal with those areas comprehensively that would have been much more satisfactory and understandable. In fact, local authorities have the power in the Bill to acquire land which is the subject of bad lay-out and obsolete development, but they are not given the finances to deal with it, and they are given a pretty broad hint that they will not get any priority but will be discouraged in every possible way from dealing with such a matter.
Even at this late stage if my right hon. Friend could see his way to say to the blitzed towns: "You have suffered, at any rate, and your area obviously requires redevelopment. We will give you all the power necessary to redevelop comprehensively, imaginatively and fully," that would be much more satisfactory than this piecemeal legislation and the pretence that we are conferring powers on local authorities to deal with, areas of bad planning and obsolete development. My right hon. Friend knows perfectly well that under the Bill that will not be possible.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give some words of encourage-

ment to local authorities whose areas have suffered extensive war damage and who have been encouraged to plan imaginatively—asked to do so by, I will not say my right hon. Friend's predecessor, but his half-brother, the Minister of Works. They were encouraged to get out imaginative plans and were given every hope that legislation would be introduced to make them possible. Having thus been led into sight of the promised land, suddenly they are not allowed to enter it. I very much hope that something will be done for those areas.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of Order, Major Milner. May I submit to you, from what the hon. Gentleman has just said, that his Amendment will greatly enlarge the scope of the Bill, so that it will no longer come within the terms of the Money Resolution? Looking at the Resolution, where it refers to "war damage," it appears to me that those words limit it, whereas the Amendment, put in after the words "war damage," will apply to cases where there is no war damage at all.

The Chairman: I am obliged to the hon. Member but I gave consideration to the point which he raised and I formed the opinion that I ought to select the Amendment.

12.30 p.m.

Sir Percy Harris: I think this is a most vital Amendment, and, if my right hon. Friend could see his way to accept it, it would very much facilitate the passage of his Bill. Public opinion is thoroughly stirred by the appalling tragedies caused by enemy action, but it has been some comfort to many people all over the country in our badly developed cities to think that we are now to have a golden opportunity to redevelop these old towns on modern lines. Obviously, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, if it is to be done piecemeal and if blitzed areas are to be planned irrespective of the rest of a city, this opportunity will be missed for ever. We have, of course, the historic case of the great fire of London. Everybody thought that London was going to be rebuilt and become a city worthy of its history and prestige. Owing to financial interests, however, the City Fathers let that opportunity go by. If we are not very careful


that will happen again in 1945, when we start to rebuild our towns.
The area I represent is long overdue for redevelopment, quite apart from the blitz. It has narrow streets, badly-planned slum areas, and factories, not in proper relation to the homes. Everything, in fact, is unsatisfactory. Now, it seems, we are to be told to pick out those bits which have been destroyed and develop them, irrespective of the general lay-out of the rest of the district. I do suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he has a great chance to make his name famous as a great planner and to go down in history as a man who modernised our cities. There is a great chance now, and it is not yet too late. It is never too late to mend. I know the right hon. Gentleman's heart is in the right place. I have known him for many years. He should take his courage in his two hands and stand up to the Treasury, if the Treasury is the obstacle. If the Treasury is not the obstacle—if he, himself, is to blame—well, we have got a very wrong impression of his character and personality. His is one of the most attractive and charming of personalities, but it is no use having charm, if he does not utilise his powers to good purpose. I am sure this Amendment is drawn on the right lineq, and the right hon. Gentleman will have not only the Committee but public opinion behind him if he accepts it. The local authorities, architects, town planners, and all those societies and organisations who have been calling out for this great opportunity will be behind him. I do appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. It is not a very alarming one. If he does not I must say, as far as I am concerned, I will give him very little help in the passage of his Bill.

Mr. Bossom: I am going to draw a simile. How could you lay out a room like this in which we are seated and deal only with one corner? It is really an impracticable arrangement not to give the local authorities the full area they have to replan. It may take them 20 years, but they have the right to know what they are to do. If you do not recognise it you will be curtailing the work very seriously.

Mr. Hugh Lawson: I have an Amendment on the Order Paper which widens the scope of this Clause even more than the Amendment we are discussing.

As I understand that my Amendment is not to be called, I am glad to be able to support the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood). I do feel that if this is to be a Town Planning Bill at all, this Amendment must be inserted in it. Even if the Bill is going to deal only with the post-war problems of blitz and blight, I am quite sure that this Clause needs extending along the lines of the words on the Order Paper. We cannot plan or redevelop our blitzed and blighted areas, unless we plan the towns on really comprehensive lines. Whatever one's view may be on the desirability of nationalisation of the land, I have yet to find the town-planner or architect, who would not rather consider the whole area of a town, instead of considering little bits of it, and it is very easy to see why that is so.
The two main problems of the redevelopment of our towns are, first, density and, secondly, open spaces. Normally, a town has in it sufficient lana to rehouse the whole population if properly used. If we start rebuilding blitzea areas in such a way that it fits into the long-term plan, there has to be an evening out of density over the whole area of the town. You have to be able to plan the whole of an area of a town, if you are going to deal with any portion of it. If you are going to plan on these lines, it means that the persons who draw up the plans have only to consider a plot's suitability regarding position, the contours and so on. If they are tied down to considering the cost of the land, or in whose ownership the land is, it is going to make things very difficult, and I therefore appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment. It is not going to force local authorities to purchase the whole of the land in their areas, but to give such progressive local authorities as desire to do so, the necessary powers. This is a permissive power; it is not a compulsory nationalisation of the whole of the land in each town. Further, I think the words "proper planning" could be interpreted to mean also the collection of betterment. There is no doubt that the only way in which a local authority can collect the increased value of a particular plot of land, due to their planning and development, is by the purchase of that land. The problem of betterment is fundamental to town planning, and local authorities should be allowed to purchase land


for the purpose of recouping themselves, and I think that could be read into the words "needed for proper planning."
As my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) has said, this is a tremendous opportunity for the country. The wheels of the Juggernaut Car of the building industry are now at a standstill, but very shortly we are going to set them moving again, and the direction in which they move will determine the sort of planning and development that takes place during the next 20 years. Therefore, we have a great responsibility in seeing that the Car is set moving in the right direction. I am sure the right direction is comprehensive planning and not patchwork and small-scale planning, so I hope that my hon. Friends who have put down this Amendment will persist with it and, if the Minister does not accept it, they will press it to a Division. If they do that, I will support them.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I rise only for a few seconds to say that I sincerely hope my right hon. Friend will reject this Amendment. I have not yet heard anything said in this Committee about those people who are to be the subjects of the planning. A great deal of anxiety is felt by people, who have been very disturbed for the last four or five years, that they are going to be unnecessarily disturbed. It seems to me that one should look at this question in the light of what the words "proper planning" mean. If they mean the pulling down of whole areas of houses, there is going to be a grave shortage of accommodation. If whole areas are pulled down it will mean that houses will be destroyed which will be very badly needed for a long time after this war. I think that we should look at the question from the other point of view as well. Whereas I would give wholehearted support to the planning of the large areas devastated by war and of the obsolete areas which are unhealthy in every way, I do not think we should try to reach for the moon. We have to come to earth and realise that if certain areas are not too bad to live in, the houses should not be pulled down. We shall be fortunate even if we get houses of that nature after the war. For that reason I hope my right hon. Friend will not listen to the too-advanced idealists. We shall be

lucky if we get only a little bit well-planned after this war.

Mr. Mack: The hon. and gallant Gentleman who last spoke seemed to indicate that he is concerned primarily with people who are likely to be disturbed by the planning of a city which has been badly blitzed. I represent a ward which, apart from the war altogether, has a tremendous amount of slum property. In the years before the war it took us many years before we could get the necessary powers on the city council, in order to deal adequately with the problem. In this Clause the Minister refers to the fact that his purpose is to deal satisfactorily with extensive war damage. It has to be extensive. The local planning authority concerned must show to the satisfaction of the Minister that part of the area has sustained war damage. The question arises how much contiguous land adjacent thereto the Minister would regard as being necessary on these lines. For example, in an area of extensive war damage, which contained certain smaller areas interspersed, all of which had received heavy bombing, would the Minister suggest for a moment that items of development should take place leaving all the intermediate property, slum areas though they may be, undisturbed? Obviously, any idea which is progressive must have a complete scheme for development, a schemè which improves the whole and not only the bombed parts. The Minister will earn the gratitude not only of Members on this side of the Committee, but of progressive Members throughout the country and of municipal corporations, if he has the courage, the foresight and the perspicacity to deal with this problem in a real manner.
12.45 p.m.
My right hon. Friend may say that he is prepared, after visiting the areas or causing some of his officers to visit the areas, to take a broad and comprehensive view, and that the terms regarding "land adjacent thereto" may cover the land which some of us have in mind; but we are entitled to an assurance which is unequivocal and which gives us complete satisfaction, and which says that the municipalities may go ahead. What is the question of money when one has to take into consideration the development of a city which, in turn, will produce


more wealth to the nation? I am amazed at the Treasury being superimposed upon these discussions. I believe, as many others believe, that given the will and the desire, now is the opportunity to reconstruct our cities. What other epoch in our history has given a better opportunity? This is, in spite of the horrors and cruelties of war, a splendid opportunity. I hope that my right hon. Friend, who is earnest and sincere about this, will do what he can to interpret in the broadest possible way the words in this Clause, and will see if he cannot include the words of the Amendment in order to broaden the whole basis of the Bill and to give satisfaction to all concerned.

Major Thorneycroft: I think we are becoming a little unrealistic about this. I hope that my right hon. Friend will resist this Amendment. The right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) urged my right hon. Friend to gain the reputation of being one of the greatest planners of history. I think that if my right hon. Friend followed the right hon. Member's advice he would go down in history as the man who started pulling down houses while a number of people in blitzed areas had no houses at all. I understand that the purpose of this Clause, and indeed the purpose of the Bill, is to deal with a desperately urgent problem and to give priority to those towns which have borne the brunt of the enemy's attack. I was astonished to hear the right hon. Gentleman who represents South-West Bethnal Green and the hon. Gentleman who represents Peckham (Mr. Silkin) seek to do away with that priority.

Sir P. Harris: I know that my hon. and gallant Friend desires to do the right thing. May I explain to him what is in my mind and, I am sure, what is in the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin)? It is not to sweep away whole blocks of buildings, but to allow authorities to make their plans, and then, gradually, as they pull down those blocks, to build others. It does not mean wholesale destruction, but a comprehensive plan.

Major Thorneycroft: Perhaps we need not pursue this discussion very much further. It is plain that there is nothing to prevent Bethnal Green or any other

place from making a comprehensive plan. What this Clause does is to enable the Minister to designate an area of war damage—and it includes areas of blight and obsolete development—for compulsory purchase. That broad right is given to those areas where immediate development has to take place. It is on those areas that we have to concentrate our greatest energies in the years immediately succeeding the cessation of hostilities. To put into this Clause words which would give the same powers as are given to Plymouth, Peckham and other blitzed areas, to Newcastle-under-Lyme, Merthyr Tydvil, or Bromley, would be to take away what it is essential to retain if we are to keep the realities of the Bill before us. I represent Stafford, and I would like a beautiful planning Bill to rebuild Stafford as early as possible; but I would say realistically to my constituents that Plymouth should have priority.

Mr. A. Bevan: Will not priority be determined by building licences?

Major Thorneycroft: No doubt there will be many things, such as labour and materials, in respect of which there will be priorities, but there will be certain places which obviously require, immediately, wide powers of compulsory purchase. Do not let us do away with the whole purport of the Bill, by putting in at the start words which would widen the scope of the Bill far beyond what was originally intended.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: This is an astounding series of propositions that we have just heard from the hon. and gallant Member. He is one of the members of the Tory Reform Committee, who are in the van of progress, but one would have thought that he was qualified for membership of the old guard. The fact is not what he suggests. The Bill falls into definite stages. First there is the stage in which an area is planned for redevelopment, and the qualification for that planning is that it should be a bombed area together with certain territory around it.

Mr. Lewis: Does the hon. and learned Member realise that if this Amendment is passed, that 'qualification will no longer exist?

Mr. Hughes: That is just what I am going to point out. The first qualification


is that it should be a bombed area. So far you have done nothing but plan and delimit. With that qualification, under the terms of the Bill, goes the right of the local authority to acquire land, subject to the authorisation of the Minister. Then comes the stage when, for that acquisition, the Treasury will give assistance by way of paying the charges on the money raised for that purpose. That cannot be extended at all, within the terms of the Resolution which the House has just approved. Then comes the physical job of actual building on the land. The plea has been put forward that, if this Amendment is passed, we are going, in some way or another, to stop giving priority to the badly-blitzed areas of the Kingdom. Nothing of the kind. This Amendment is not to deprive them of that priority, but to bring the work down under that priority within the scope of a more comprehensive plan. It is true that the terms of the Amendment will also carry with it the rights of a town which has not. been blitzed to plan, but not to get priority. Why should not the towns of bad lay-out be allowed, at least, to plan? They will not get any money.

Major Thorneycroft: Is there any provision in any Bill which prevents them planning?

Mr. Hughes: There is.

Major Thorneycroft: They have power to purchase land.

Mr. Hughes: Yes, there are town and country planning provisions; but they are ineffective. They have been proved to be ineffective. This proposal, as buttressed by the provisions enabling the local authorities to acquire land, is the only thing which will help the authorities in blighted areas. Otherwise, the authority will be defeated at once by the cost that it has to meet. The problem, therefore, is only that of enabling planning to be done, and to exercise the thought and foresight which is put into the general plan to secure the progress that we want to see, and not to deprive any town, such as Plymouth, of the power to deal immediately with war damage. I do not think the question could be better put than it was by the Royal Institute of British Architects:
It was emphasised that unless such immediate acquisition of land for the various urgent purposes arising from the consequences of the

war is also related to needs beyond this temporary emergency, any attempt at creating a rational, constant and continuous development in respect of the use of land will be irretreviably lost.
By this Amendment we are giving the Committee an opportunity of saying, not that it is not going to do the best thing by the blitzed towns, and to do that first, but that it does believe in planning, and in planning as a whole. As has been pointed out, planning which is not planning as a whole does not deserve the title of planning at all. This is supposed to be a planning Bill. I, therefore, hope that the Minister will not accede to the blandishments of his reforming friends, but will prefer to give some hope and encouragement to those who want to design our cities to make them worthy of our country.

Major Sir Derrick Gunston: The hon. and learned Member has charged my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) with being a Tory Reformer. A Tory Reformer stands for progress, coupled with being practical as well. It is because we are practical that the country has always returned the Conservative Party, and not the Labour Party, when it wants to get on with rehousing. I think the hon. and learned Member will agree with me that if we pass this Amendment the whole of this Bill will have to be drastically recast. I urge my hon. Friends opposite to come down to earth, even for a minute or two. Do they, or do they not, want to rebuild cities which have been bombed? It is no good my hon. and learned Friend talking in that airy way: he knows that this Bill was intended for that one purpose, and that if it is enlarged into other spheres it will not be concentrated where it is wanted. I am convinced the Minister is quite right to give priority to the bombed cities, because the houses are not there at all; they have gone. The authorities want this Bill to get on with their schemes to put the people into houses where they can live. I hope the Minister will on no account give way.

1.0 p.m.

Mr. Cocks: Surely, the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend is that the Amendment, and the Clause, rest on the words "five years from the commencement of the Act"? You cannot say that an application, which can be brought


to the Minister in five years' time, means that priority is being given for the blitzed areas, for, in five years' time, I hope that we shall have got on some way in dealing with the blitzed areas. My second point is this. We have to consider that the local authorities have some commonsense. It is not to be supposed that the municipalities are going to start pulling down houses at the beginning of their re-housing plans. They are not going to pull down houses already standing if they can help it, until they have got other houses ready for the people. It is true they can have these palaces to be built by the Ministry of Works—these different Portal bungalows—which will enable them to re-house people while the slums are being pulled down. I think some hon. Members, including the hon. and gallant Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower), argued that some people would be disturbed by these proceedings in an area of bad layout or slum conditions.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I was referring to a large number of people in an area of bad lay-out, not an area which would come under the provisions of this Amendment.

Mr. Cocks: But the words are:
Bad lay-out and obsolete development needing proper planning.
I think the experience of most people would be that a shopkeeper in an area badly planned would be amply compensated as the result of planning if he was given a shop in a fine, broad street linked up with the main shopping centre of the town. The blitzed towns want this as part of their plan. They do not want it to be confined to the part of their town which has been bombed by the enemy. Look at Plymouth. I am rather surprised that the Noble Lady the Member for Sutton (Viscountess Astor) is not sticking up for her city, and her Noble Lord in this matter.

Viscountess Astor: Give me time.

Mr. Cocks: I ask, what is the good of a city authority planning for a blitzed area, and planning for a main thoroughfare leading out of that area and facing up to a row of slums, where the road comes up against a blank wall?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is not the hon. Member mixing

up planning and reconstruction? The plan has been prepared and we all know about it. It is a question of reconstruction.

Mr. Cocks: If you reconstruct, you do it according to plan. If an improvement in these blitzed areas is not to be linked up with another part of the area, what is the good of proceeding with the centre part if the road suddenly stops 150 yards from a slum area?

Mr. A. Bevan: What the Tory Reformers mean is to be practical without having a plan.

Mr. Cocks: I think my hon. Friend is wrong for once. I think the Tories have a plan, but they are afraid to disclose it to the public. I emphasise the point I made earlier, and, as an instance, I would ask if the road from the North Road Station at Plymouth to the centre of the city will come under the Bill or will it not?

Captain Prescott: I have listened very carefully to all the speeches on this question and I cannot help thinking that there is some confusion between planning and the acquisition of land. So far as I know, there is nothing to prevent Plymouth, or any other town, taking steps to make such plans as it considers desirable for reconstructing the town in the most beneficial manner for the population. Clause z of this Bill is concerned with the compulsory acquisition of land in a city which has suffered extensive war damage, or land which is needed for replacing people who formerly lived on that land, and I really think' that, while all hon. Members want to make speeches saying how our cities must be replanned in a better way than ever before, and while, like the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris), I could make a most impressive speech in that direction, we should look at this Clause and the Bill in the cold light of facts, and not let our natural ambition to make favourable speeches run away with us.
Let us take a town which has suffered damage as a result of enemy operations. As I understand it, the Government say that in an area, so much of which has been devastated that it is impossible to define the actual boundaries of the properties previously existing, and to say to whom they belonged, it is necessary, in


the interests of good planning in that city, for the whole area to be acquired by the local authority, and that the local authority should be in a position to impose a master plan for that particular area. Quite obviously, in imposing a master plan for that particular blitzed area, they will, or should, and if they are reasonably efficient they will, take into consideration the plan for the whole of their ity, and I can think of no local authority in this country which would plan a little part of its own district without considering the effect which that planning would have on the area as a whole.
Clause 1 of 0this Bill, as I understand it, when read with Clause 2, gives an expedited procedure for acquiring land which has suffered extensive war damage, the object being that, with regard to areas of that nature, it is necessary that the ordinary precautions and safeguards which existed for many years to protect owners, even very small owners, should be pushed on one side, and a considerably expedited procedure should be available to the authority for acquiring that land. Let us assume that they are acquiring under that procedure, and that there is, a 'street or two away, another area the lay-out of which has become obsolete and which requires replanning as a whole. Surely, the local authority, having acquired the land which suffered extensive war damage, will consider to what use it is to be put-residential, at eight or four houses to the acre, or utilised as a public open space, or used for public buildings—and, in considering the use to which it will be put, it will consider the nature of the surrounding property and the use to which they consider that property also should, in time, be put. Later on, it may well be that they will wish to acquire property to redevelop it because of bad lay-out and obsolete development in that area, and, so far as I can see, there would be nothing to stop them doing that under Clause 9.
What my hon. Friend wants is that the local authority shall be enabled, at one and the same time, to acquire the blitzed area and also to acquire the area which is obsolete because of bad lay-out. Is that a reasonable proposition or not? I have addressed some remarks to the Committee to try to show, as I think rightly, that any local authority, when

considering the rebuilding of its city, will consider the blitzed area in relation to the areas of bad lay-out. Surely, no one would consider one part without the other, but this must surely be true—that the local authority will first wish to deal by way of actual reconstruction of the blitzed area. The manner in which they deal with it will relate to the other part of their area. If it be a fact that the part of their town which they will wish to reconstruct first is the blitzed area, surely it is right that they should acquire tit first, and that there is a special case for expediting the procedure of compulsory acquisition? If you are not going to deal with obsolete areas at one and the same time, what reasonable case is there for giving the expedited procedure and the provisions of Clause I?
It is not a question of planning, but of the method of acquisition of land, and, while I sympathise most fully with the sentiments of hon. Members in all parts of the House as to the necessity of planning as a whole, and while I subscribe to them, I myself cannot see how the provisions of Clause 1, as it stands, prevent the planning as a whole. If hon. Members opposite, or on this side of the House, can show me how wrong I am, or how incapable of appreciating the provisions of the Bill, I will most wholeheartedly subscribe to their proposition that their Amendment is necessary. At the moment, I cannot see it, and I say, with great respect to all who have spoken, that I think they are confusing compulsory acquisition and planning. There is nothing to stop full, comprehensive planning; there are different methods of acquisition. In view of the statement by several hon. Members that reconstruction of the blitzed areas must come first, surely there is also a case for expediting the procedure for acquiring those areas first? When you have acquired them, you will, of course, plan as a whole.
I hope, in view of the very great importance of these matters and the sincerity with which hon. Members have spoken, that they will show me, if they can, the errors of my ways, but, at the moment, I cannot see any case at all for this Amendment.

Mr. John Dugdale: This Amendment seems to me to be absolutely vital. If the Committee passes


it, we shall plan; if it is not passed, we shall simply patch up. The so-called Tory Reformers are in favour of patching but not of planning, so that we know where we stand. [Interruption.] I would like to use a simile. Supposing a man came into hospital having been wounded in the arm, and also suffering from appendicitis, what would anybody think of the doctor who said "You must deal with the arm, because it is a war injury, but on no account must you deal with the appendicitis, because it might just have well have been contracted in peace-time"?

Viscountess Astor: Is that not rather a good simile to apply to the blitzed areas? The hon. Member has just made the point which I want to make. They are the worst.

Mr. Dugdale: I am not at all certain that a wound in the arm is worse than appendicitis. Hon. Members have been confusing the matter, because of making it an issue of bombed versus unbombed areas. There is no competition between them in this respect. Take an area which has suffered very heavy bombing; it may be in the centre of London. There may be unbombed, parts in and around that area which it would be useful to develop in connection with the re-planning of the bombed area, and if the Bill is not passed, it will be very difficult for such sites to be acquired. Hon. Members say that there is no-difficulty about planning.

1.15 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: Where in this Bill is authority given to local authorities to plan?

Mr. Dugdale: That is not the issue here. This Amendment asks that local authorities may have powers to deal with conditions of lay-out. An hon. Member said that they can plan; there is nothing to prevent planning at all. Anybody could produce a plan for the whole of England. I could sit down and produce a plan for my own constituency.

Viscountess Astor: I doubt even that.

Mr. Dugdale: The Noble Lady could no doubt produce an admirable plan for Plymouth.

Viscountess Astor: I would not be such an idiot as to think that I could.

Captain Prescott: I endeavoured to make the position clear, that not only could a local authority plan, but under the provisions of Clauses 1, 2 and 9 it could effectively carry out the compulsory acquisitions necessary, and these Clauses are acquisition Clauses and not planning Clauses.

Mr. Dugdale: I maintain that planning is not enough and must be coupled with acquisition. In order to get planning at all, you must have the two together, and that is the essential point of this Amendment. I want to know the reason for resisting the Amendment. Is it in order to help the bombed out? It is not anything of the kind. There are areas—as I tried to convince the Minister recently, but I regret to say that I failed—where it is impossible for the time to get enough builders together in order to get on with development. Yet there may be builders in other places that could be used if they were available, without in any way interfering with building in a bombed area, and the local authority might usefully acquire sites and get on with the development there. But it will not be able to do so if it cannot acquire the sites.
There is no question of rivalry between bombed areas and other areas. For the bombed areas, as for the unbombed, proper planning is necessary if we do not want to get a patchy mess when we have finished with the whole thing. It would be unfortunate if we turned this country into a series of patches laid out for us in advance by the Luftwaffe, which is what I understand certain hon. Members want us to do it other areas, not so prepared by the Luftwaffe, are to remain untouched, for a long period. What is the object of opposing the Amendment? I can only think that it is to help landed interests. One hon. Member asked why pull down houses already there. We should certainly use these houses, but it is not only houses that are in question; it might be that other business premises or shops must be pulled down in order to house people in a proper co-ordinated plan. Some hon. Members will resist this because they want to keep the land as long as they can so that it can be sold to the highest bidder later on.

Captain Prescott: I do not own an acre of land.

Mr. Dugdale: The hon. and gallant Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott) may possibly not own any land, and I do not want to be personal.

Captain Prescott: How much does the hon. Member own?

Mr. Dugdale: Not very much. I am not talking personally about hon. Members. I mean that hon. Members as a party are standing for landlords and for the Landowners' Association, and I challenge them to say that they do not support those interests. I do not intend to get involved in personalities in this matter. I am simply talking of the principle whether, in resisting the Amendment, hon. Members are actuated by the desire to help the bombed out, the local authorities or the landlords. I say specifically that the one thing by which they are actuated is the desire to help the landlords.

Mr. Reakes: I wish to be brief, and therefore will not become involved in an academic discussion of what is planning and reconstruction, and whether we could have one without the other. I am not going to be guilty of introducing personalities. I am here to stress the claims of a blitzed area. I happen to be a member of the municipal authority of a badly blitzed area—part of Merseyside. It is a great surprise to me to find that the Minister is cold and hard-hearted towards this reasonable Amendment. When I was experiencing, along with many of my colleagues, weeks and months of bombing and saw the hopeless destruction and loss of life, I did not dream that it would ever be necessary for any Member of Parliament to get up and make an eloquent appeal for assistance on behalf of bombed areas. I thought that it would be automatic.
The reception given by Members of the Government to this vital Amendment proves that all the sacrifices and sufferings of the bombed areas are already forgotten. It is the considered opinion of authorities of blitzed areas that this Bill is totally inadequate to help them to solve their vital problem. It has been put forward by a body that cannot be challenged for fairness and experience, knowledge and ability—the Association of Municipal Corporations. It has been considered by the Town Planning Institute and other bodies, and they are unanimous that the

provisions of the Bill are seriously short of what should be found possible to help these authorities. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to accompany me on a tour of Merseyside and talk to men of all political opinions upon whom rests the responsibility for facing up to the problem, he would see evidence to prove that the Amendment is possible, if we are to get down to planning and reconstruct areas on a total planning and reconstruction basis. [Interruption.] I am not talking nonsense, I speak from 22 years' experience as a member of a planning and reconstruction committee. If this Bill is to be worthy of my support and the support of those representing the authorities more directly concerned, some drastic Amendments will be necessary.
I voted against the Second Reading of the Bill, with the proviso that I would vote for the Third Reading, if during the Committee stage a change of heart was shown by the Government and a desire to face the real and true position. But this is a bad start to a three days' consideration of this Bill in Committee. If the right hon. Gentleman had shown that breadth of vision and spirit which we all expected of him, he would have said, "I accept the Amendment." It has been described as a vital Amendment and I have not heard a speech during the Debate in the interests of the people who have been bombed and who are concerned, that has shown the Amendment to be anything other than a most sensible one. I hope that there will be a Division and that we Shall vote according to the merits of the Amendment and will not allow ourselves—I am a free man, thank goodness—to be driven into the Government Lobby against this reasonable and essential Amendment.

Lieut. - Commander Joynson - Hicks: I really think that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes) has not recently considered the terms of the Amendment. The Amendment falls clearly into two sections. The first section of the Amendment deals with conditions of bad lay-out and obsolete development, and the second, which deals with the areas which are required for proper planning, is redundant if it means anything at all. I cannot understand at all how any court of justice which might be required to give an interpretation could possibly arrive at a meaning of what is "proper planning."

Mr. Silkin: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that these are the exact words used in Clause 10 of the Bill?

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: I am aware of that too. With regard to the first section of the Amendment, we have fallen into this category. The Clause he is seeking to amend deals solely with, and gives priority to, property which has been bombed—the devastated areas. He is seeking to incorporate into that Clause a provision to give equal priority to the acquisition of land and the redevelopment of obsolete areas. As the Committee is well aware, a provision almost identical with that proposed in the Amendment occurs later in the Bill for dealing with that very matter in its fit and proper place, but that fit and proper place is after reasonable time and reasonable priority have been given to do what the hon. Member required, namely, to give consideration to the bombed and devastated areas. Therefore, if the Amendment which he advocated is possible in any way, it is directly contrary to the interests of those living in the devastated areas. I most urgently hope that the Government will not accept the Amendment and that the devastated and bombed areas, which I think we all agree should have priority, will have priority and will not be delayed by the introduction of this Bill.

Mr. A. Bevan: There are two considerations of time and of practice which are opposed in this problem. One is planning in general and the other is priority for the blitzed areas. There was no reason why that proper distinction should not have been imparted into the Bill in the first place. All the requirements for urgency on the part of the blitzed areas could be met if the Bill had been a comprehensive planning Bill. There was no reason why the proper claims of the blitzed areas should necessarily have brought about a dichotomy in the structure of the Bill. Exactly the same provisions which would have enabled general planning to be carried out, would have conferred on the authorities in the blitzed areas the necessary powers to proceed with the construction. My hon. Friends opposite, who are continually trying to argue that the reason why they cannot accept this Amendment is because it is imported into a Clause which purports to deal primarily with

the urgent necessity of rebuilding blitzed areas, are entirely at fault because what they would have to show if that were the case would be that these words imported into the Clause would hamper, impede, and retard the authorities of the blitzed areas in getting on with the job.

1.30 p.m.

Mr. Malson: They could use their priority.

Mr. Bevan: Priority for the blitzed areas is not necessarily a matter of the statutory powers conferred upon blitzed areas. Priority for rebuilding blitzed areas is primarily a matter of allocating available material first of all to the blitzed areas, and is a matter of practice, of administration; it is not a matter of legislation. My hon. Friend shakes his head but. I think that is the conclusion, and without desiring to impute motives, is the deliberate conclusion in the minds of hon. Members opposite.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to iuterrupt? Surely it is no good granting priority until the land has been acquired?

Mr. Bevan: Certainly, but our Amendment would allow the acquiring of the necessary land as well as additional land. If the Amendment were carried, it would not restrict the powers of the blitzed area authorities to acquire land, it would enlarge them, so that in point of fact the power of other authorities in other parts of the country—not blitzed—to acquire land for preparing comprehensive plans for obsolescent and bad areas would include the narrower powers to acquire land at once for the blitzed areas.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: But my hon. Friend has not taken into consideration the terms of Clause 9.

Mr. Bevan: But Clause 9 would be redundant if this Amendment were carried. My argument is this, that the opposition in practice which necessarily exists between dealing with the obsolescent areas and the blitzed areas is a distinction which ought never to have been imported into the structure of the Bill, because the larger would have included the narrower.

Captain Prescott: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me? Is there not a very great physical distinction? In the case of a blitzed area, you are acquiring land with


no, or practically no, buildings on it, but in the case of an obsolescent area, although the buildings may be old and badly laid out, there are in fact people living there who would have to be taken away and put elsewhere.

Mr. Bevan: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will permit me, I am dealing with that point. The first point which I have been trying to make, and which I think I have made, is that the larger powers which would be given to local authorities if our Amendment were carried would include, enlarge, and fortify the narrower powers now conferred by the Clause upon authorities in blitzed areas. So there is no opposition in principle between the needs of the blitzed area and the need for wider planning. However, we understand very well why the distinction was made in the structure of the Bill—that is perfectly clear. We were hoping on this side of the Committee that the greater public attention to and urgency for planning by blitzed cities would have acted as a motive power in the public mind to confer larger and wider powers of planning. Hon. Members are perfectly correct in saying that we are asking for powers to acquire land which go beyond the necessity for the reconstruction of blitzed areas. We do not deny that. In fact we were hoping to get the support of my hon. Friends the members of the Tory Reform Committee in this. We were hoping that the sense of urgency about rebuilding and planning imported into the public atmosphere would have been used for wider powers of general planning. But what do my hon. Friends opposite want? They want to take the edge of the public agitation by dealing with the narrow issue of the bombed cities in the hope of indefinitely postponing the powers to reconstruct the rest of the cities and towns. Their desire is a political one, pure and simple.

Viscountess Astor: Oh.

Mr. Bevan: I do not want to repeat myself, and I hope the Noble Lady will subdue her groans. She. will probably have an opportunity just now of giving a rational reply instead of producing barbaric noises.

Viscountess Astor: I wish the hon. Gentleman could hear himself instead of me.

Mr. Bevan: The fact is that the idea in the minds of hon. Members opposite is to try, if they possibly can, to tide over the present emergency by limiting as far as possible the powers of public authorities to acquire privately owned land. We do not conceal it from ourselves that we wanted to use the crisis in housing in order to enlarge the powers of the public authorities to acquire land. So there is between us a very important point of principle, arising out of the fact that my hon. Friends opposite think it is always a bad thing for public authorities to acquire land—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—and that they should only be allowed to acquire. that land in circumstances of the utmost emergency. My hon. Friend opposite has said that there is nothing at all in the Bill which prevents local authorities, under Clause 9, from planning, but the point at issue is, that if the acquisition of land is not limited any longer—and it would not be limited if the amendment were carried—the approach of local authorities towards planning the amenities of their areas would be revolutionised, because they would then be allowed to regard the amenities and requirements of the land as over-riding the claims of any private property owners within the area. Indeed, under Clause 9, they could acquire the land.

Captain Prescott: It is only a difference in procedure.

Mr. Bevan: Yes, I know, but the Minister's sanction would have to be obtained.

Captain Prescott: Under Clause 12.

Mr. Bevan: And within five years the Minister would quite properly say, if the Bill is left as it is at the moment, "Why do you need to acquire this land, which you will not be able to make use of for some years to come, because all the resources of the Building Industry will be absorbed for four, five or six years in the rebuilding of the blitzed areas?" He might also say, "Make your plans, there is nothing to stop that; but do not acquire the land because, in the meantime, you will not be able to carry out your plans, and it is undesirable to take land from private persons until a public authority is able effectively to carry out its plans." What may happen when the five years are up? All the land which will not have been acquired will have been very sub-


stantially raised in value by what the local authorities will have done in the meantime.
That is what my hon. Friends have at the back of their minds. Why, indeed, have the five years limit at all? In point of fact they are saying, "Let us use the public anxiety about houses to try and convince the country that the opposition of the Socialists is holding up the building of houses in the bombed areas," although it does not hold up a single house. In order to get public opinion to agree upon an emergency measure of this sort, it takes the edge off the public agitation and then leaves the landlord in the possession of land that will be enhanced in value on the expiration of five years for which the public authority will have to give higher compensation when they come to acquire it. That is what is behind my hon. Friend's opposition to this Amendment. If that is not behind it, I ask them to show us how, in any practical meaning of the term, the building of houses in the bombed areas would be in the slightest degree retarded if the Amendment were carried. Unless my hon. Friends can do that, all that they have been doing this morning is simply putting on a mask to conceal intentions which are too disreputable to mention.

Mr. Molson: The hon Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) on this occasion, as on so many others, has made a contribution to the Debate of quite outstanding interest, although it is not entirely in harmony with the speeches made by other Members sitting around him. He said early on his speech that he did not wish to attribute motives, but he departed from that good intention very soon—

Mr. Bevan: Intentions.

Mr. Molson: Intentions and motives are very similar.

Mr. Bevan: Oh, no. Motives are not Parliamentary, but intentions are.

Mr. Molson: He did, however, in some degree redeem himself because he proceeded then to exclaim to the whole world that the attitude of the Labour Party in moving this Amendment was not that they really believed that it would be helpful from a practical point of view, but that they wished to take advantage of the present public interest in the bombed areas in order to obtain a larger control of land

for the public authorities than would have been possible under different circumstances. I make no complaint. It is a policy they have put forward in their general election speeches on previous occasions without ever being successful in persuading the electorate—

Mr. Bevan: And the electorate have been conspicuously unsuccessful in getting the houses they need from the Tories.

Mr. Molson: I could make a plain answer to that.

Mr. George Griffiths (Hemstworth): They did in West Derbyshire just lately.

Mr. Molson: If I may be allowed to resume and not have to deal with a lot of interruptions at the same time—during the twenty years' truce, half as many houses have been built in this country as existed in the whole country in 1914. That is not a bad record when it is remembered how much other construction took place at the same time.
However, I will return to the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. His speech differed from that of other hon. Members opposite who have spoken because he did not suggest that Clause 9 was inadequate to the purpose of acquiring the land and of carrying out rebuilding in blighted areas. What he put forward was this proposition, that it would have suited him and his friends very well if the same expedited procedure had been made available in the case of Merthyr Tydvil as is going to be made available in Plymouth. [HON. MEMBERS: Why not?]If the hon. Member had studied some of the Amendments that have been put down on the Order Paper, he would have seen that the Government intend, as a result of the representations of the local authorities, to assimilate more closely the procedure under Clause I, Clause 9 and Clause 10 and, to a very large extent, that point—in so far as it is a legitimate point—is being met in the subsequent Amendments. Where the hon. Member's speech differed so widely from that of, for example, the speech of the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale), was that he had familiarised himself sufficiently with the Bill not to make the charge against us that we desired patchwork planning. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale proposed to retain the priority for the blitzed areas but to exercise it administratively.


1.45 p.m.
He was going to offer to the whole of the country the procedure under Clause 1 and then he was going to exercise an administrative discretion and say that the rebuilding of Merthyr Tydfil has to wait until the blitzed towns have been rebuilt. There is a great deal to be said for the attitude of the Government, which makes it plain that they are going to give legislative precedence to the blitzed areas and deal with that problem first.

Mr. Bevan: Where, in the Bill, is the priority?

Mr. Molson: In the Clause we are discussing at the present time. I thought that was the ground of the complaint. I am sorry if I have misunderstood the general criticism of hon. Members opposite. Under the Clause we are now discussing there is power for acquisition not only for an area of extensive war damage but for land adjacent to it, land such as is necessary for the redevelopment of the whole of that area. If I understand the purpose of the Amendment at all, it is to give the same accepted procedure not for planning but for compulsory land acquisition to towns which have not had extensive war damage.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich said that we were admitting that we wanted piecemeal planning and my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom) said that if you took this Chamber, for example, it was impossible to plan it effectively if you were only going to plan one part of it. But, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott) pointed out, this Bill does not prevent any local authority from planning. When the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hughes) was taxed upon the point, and was asked what there was to prevent any local authority from planning, he was not able to answer that question. He said it was well known that the present planning Statutes were ineffective for that purpose, which was not an answer to the question which was put to him. There is nothing to prevent any town from replanning itself. All that is dealt with in this particular Clause is the question of the acquisition of land which is extensively war damaged and the land adjacent thereto. Therefore, the only point of the argument of the hon. Member for West Bromwich is this: that he

had confused the question of planning and the acquisition of land—

Mr. John Dugdale: I thought I had made it clear that there is no point in just being able to plan if you cannot acquire land as well. Planning in vacuo will not help anybody.

Mr. Molson: As the hon. Member for Ebbw Value pointed out, in Clauses 9 and 10 there is power to acquire land and if the hon. Member will read the Amendments which have been put down he will find that the procedure for the compulsory acquisition of land has been, broadly, assimilated as between those Clauses but is merely varied in accordance with the size of the area. Therefore, I hope the Minister will not depart from the accepted structure of his Bill. It gives legislative priority to blitzed towns and enables them, if they are bold and imaginative, to acquire not only areas which have been destroyed by bombs but also all the land adjacent thereto and in the case of the blighted towns, which will have to wait until the acute housing shortage has been overtaken, this Bill provides adequate power for them in Clauses 9 and 10.

Sir John Mellor: I hope my right hon. Friend will resist this Amendment. We should apply the maxim of putting first things first and thereby apply the proper priority. Having regard to the provisions of Clause 9, which seem to provide adequate procedure for dealing with the subject-matter of the Amendment, that is to say, areas of bad lay-out and obsolete areas, I really believe that the motive behind this Amendment is financial, the idea being to extend over a far wider field the financial facilities given by Clause 5. I think those facilities should be limited to the purposes of Clauses 1 and z as they now stand. In order to secure the application of the proper priorities by the local authorities I do not think we should extend those financial facilities more widely. With regard to the motives of those who resist this Amendment, I hope Members of the Labour Party are now more satisfied that we really are concerned with getting the right priorities and not with holding anything up, and with seeing that people are not turned out of houses, whatever they may be like, until there are other houses in which they can live.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: Perhaps it might suit the convenience of the Committee if I replied now to the very interesting and varied speeches we have had on this Amendment. I was promised all sorts of historical consequences by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) if I were to accept it, but I believe that the effect of accepting this Amendment would be really to weaken the powers of the Bill to deal with the twin problems of blitz and of blight. Already in the Bill, in Clause 9, there is ample provision for dealing with obsolete development and bad lay-out. In. Clause 10 powers are given for acquiring land for certain planning purposes. Hon. Members may say that they are not wide enough, but a case ought to be made out. The Bill contains powers for acquiring bomb damaged land, blitzed land, and other land for certain other purposes. If I accepted the Amendment it would mean that the provisions of Clause 9 would become redundant because under Clause 1 the procedure would be applied to blight as well as blitz. The position would be that the Amendment carries with it a five year time limit within which applications for powers must be made, a limitation appropriate in the case of blitz, where the urgency is apparent, but what would be the position at the end of five years with regard to blight? You will not be able to deal with blight in five years.

Mr. Bevan: We have not imposed that restriction upon the Minister.

Mr. Morrison: I have imposed that limitation for the sake of the damaged areas. I say it is appropriate to those areas, but there is no time limit in Clause 9 as it stands. Powers will be available when the Bill is passed, and will continue for the period of acute urgency into the second priority.

Mr. Silkin: If the Minister accepts the Amendment, there will have to be a consequential Amendment to put that right. It is quite easy to put right.

Mr. Morrison: I do not think that is worth while; I do not see where the hon. Member would gain. There is no point in assimilating the two procedures to the extent suggested in the Amendment. The powers in the Bill are ample. The whole difficulty that arises on this question is due to a misconception which seems hard to

eradicate, namely, that it is necessary to acquire land if you are to plan it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green made a historical reference to the Great Fire of London; but at that time no code of planning powers was in existence. Now there is, and local authorities in the bombed cities are busy making plans, if they have not made them already, for the whole reconstruction of their cities as and when time permits. So there is no limitation of powers of purchase which affects the powers to plan under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932.

Mr. Hugh Lawson: Would the Minister reply to the point which I made, that it would greatly facilitate planning if a planner could consider the suitability of a piece of land and was not tied by knowing that the cost of the land was high or that it was in the ownership of a certain individual?

Mr. Morrison: I do not think that question is germane to this Amendment. Consideration of the cost arises when you acquire land, but does not always arise when you impose planning restrictions. I hope local authorities will exercise their planning powers in such a way that when this Bill becomes law they can exercise the great new powers which are being given to them for the first time in conformity with good planning for the whole of their districts. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) asked whether it would be possible, in acquiring land under Clause 1, to acquire land for the necessary roads for proper reconstruction. That is provided for in the Bill. The necessary land can be acquired and also such adjacent land, even if it is undamaged, as is necessary to make a satisfactory project of the whole position. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale seemed to read into our attitude on this matter some desire to prevent local authorities from reaping any financial gain that would arise from buying land now. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent them from acquiring land for blighted areas, and thus there is no substance in the point he made on that count.

Captain Prescott: If one assumes that a local authority did not now exercise its powers under Clause 9 but exercised them, say, 10 years later, would it be


correct to say that the authority might then have to pay increased compensation under Clause 9?

Mr. Morrison: The proposal in the Bill is to stabilise the price of land for five years. It might be that the price would go up, or it might be that it would fall. My hon. and gallant Friend is asking me to forecast a hypothetical market in land, which I cannot do.

Mr. A. Bevan: As the right hon. Gentleman dismissed my argument so summarily, would he answer this question, because I am certain that it will influence Members very much? If the local authority of a blighted area put a plan before him for the acquirement of all the land they might need for the carrying out of a scheme, would he agree to it although the scheme might not be carried out for seven or 10 years?

Mr. Morrison: There is nothing in the Bill to prevent them doing so; each scheme would have to be considered on its merits. I cannot answer a hypothetical question, but there is nothing in the Bill to prevent me from giving assent to such a proposition.

Mr. Woodburn: There is one thing which is worrying people. If limitation of the purchase were confined to planning of an area that might affect an outside area, and which might benefit from that planning, how would that be prevented?

2.0 p.m.

Mr. Morrison: That again raises the question, which is outside the Bill, of compensation and betterment. Certain proposals have been put before the House by the Government in a White Paper for dealing with these development values which might be created by such action. That is the next step on the road which

we shall have to take, but that is dealt with there and not in the Bill. What the Bill does for bombed areas is to ask local authorities within five years to exercise these powers. Local authorities say it will take them all that time to frame their proposals, and for some they will want a longer time. But the House says: "You should be urgent about it. Frame your proposals under Clause 1." At the same time the Bill removes the disability on local authorities to acquire land which they need to replan as a whole for reasons of bad layout and obsolete development. They have never had that before. It is proposed for the first time in the Bill. That power has no time limit upon it so that, if they are prevented by the shortage of houses in the locality from in fact dealing with obsolescence within the five years, the powers do not lapse but continue and, as and when they have planned out the area as regards obsolescence and bomb damage, and as opportunity comes to them through pressure on housing accommodation becoming less, they can proceed, with these powers which they have never had before, to deal with the urgent problem of obsolescence. As I have listened to the Debate I have been impressed by the keenness shown by hon. Members on this problem but I cannot help thinking that a great deal of the pressure behind the Amendment is due to a misconception of the position, which I have tried to explain. The Bill confers the powers. It confers them in a different way because the problems are different, but to accept the Amendment would not extend the powers and would not extend the finance. It would indeed take these long-range powers and put them into a shorter period. For these reasons I am bound to resist the Amendment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 87; Noes, 179.

Division No. 33.]
AYES.
[2.2 p.m.


Adamson, Mrs. Jennie L. (Dartford)
Cluse, W. S.
Green, W. H. (Deptford)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Cooks, F. S.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.


Barr, J.
Cove, W. G.
Grenfell, D. R.


Barstow, P. G.
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)


Beaumont, Hubert (Batley)
Dobbie, W.
Gruffydd, Professor W. J.


Bonson, G.
Driberg, T. E. N.
Guy, W. H.


Bovan, A. (Ebbw Vale)
Dugdale, John (W. Bromwich)
Hardie, Mrs. Agnes


Bowles, F. G.
Dunn, E.
Harris, Rt. Hn. Sir P. A.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Edwards, Walter J. (Whitechapel)
Harvey, T. E.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Foster, W.
Hayday, A.


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Frankel, D.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)


Burke, W. A.
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)


Charleton, H. C.
George, Mogan Lloyd (Anglesey)
Hollins, J. H. (Silvertown)


Chater, D.
Glanvilie, J. E.
Horabin, T. L.




Hubbard, T. F.
Montague, F.
Thorne, W.


Hynd, J. B.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)


Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Naylor, T. E.
Tinker, J. J.


Kendall, W. D.
Neal, H.
Walkden, E. (Doncaster)


Key, C. W.
Oldfield, W. H.
Watkins, F. C.


King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.
Parker, J.
Watson, W. McL.


Kirby, B. V.
Poole, Captain C. C.
White, C. F. (Derbyshire, W.)


Kirkwood, D.
Quibell, D. J. K.
White, H. (Derby, N.E.)


Lawson, H. M. (Skipton)
Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)
White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)


Lawson, J. J. (Chester-le-Street)
Riley, B
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Lipson, D. L.
Ritson, J.
Wilmot, John


Loverseed, J. E.
Roberts, W.
Windsor, W.


Mack, J. D.
Salter, Dr. A. (Bormondsey, W.)
Woodburn, A.


Mckinlay, A. S.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)



Maclean, N. (Govan)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—


Manning, C. A. G.
Thomas, I. (Keighley)
Mr. Silkin and Mr. Moelwyn




 Hughes




NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Goldie, N. B.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W.


Agnew, Comdr. P. G.
Gower, Sir R. V.
Peat, C. U.


Apsley, Lady
Greenwell, Colonel T. G.
Peto, Major B. A. J.


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.
Gretton, J. F.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.


Beattie, F. (Cathcart)
Grigg, Rt. Hon. Sir P. J. (Cardiff, E.)
Prescott, Capt. W. R. S.


Beaumont, Maj. Hn. R. E. B. (P'tsm'th)
Grimston, R. V. (Westbury)
Porbrick, R.


Beech, Major F. W.
Guest, Lt.-Col. H. (Drake)
Raikes, Flight-Lieut. H. V. A. M.


Beechman, N. A.
Gunston, Major Sir D. W.
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)


Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)
Hacking, Rt. Han. Sir D. H.
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Berry, Hon. G. L. (Buckingham)
Hammersley, S. S.
Roes, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Blair, Sir R.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Ross Taylor, W.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D C.
Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N.E.)
Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.


Boulton, Sir W. W.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Salt, E. W.


Bower, Norman (Harrow)
Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Bower, Comdr. R. T. (Cleveland)
Hopkinson, A.
Schuster, Sir G. E.


Brabner, Comdr. R. A.
Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.
Scott, Donald (Wansbeck)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. J. G. (H'dern's)
Horsbrugh, Florence
Scott, Lord William (Ro'b'k &amp; Selk'k)


Brooke, H. (Lewisham)
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Selley, Sir H. R.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Jeffreys, General Sir G. D.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Bull, B. B.
Jewson, P. W.
Shute, Col. Sir J. J.


Burton, Col. H. W.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T. (St'I'g &amp; C'km'n)
Simmonds, Sir O. E.


Butcher, H. W.
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Cadogan, Major Sir E.
Jones, Sir L (Swansea, W.)
Snadden, W. McN.


Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley)
Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.
Somervell, Rt. Hon. Sir D. B.


Castlereagh, Viscount
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Comdr. Hon. L. W.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Keatinge, Major E. M.
Storey, S.


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Keir, Mrs. Cazalet
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Cobb, Captain E. C.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Strickland, Capt. W. F.


Colegate, W. A.
Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Colman, N. C. D.
Kimball, Major L.
Studholme, Major H. C.


Conant, Major R. J. E.
Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Suirdale, Viscount


Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Summers, G. S.


Craven-Ellis, W.
Lancaster, Lieut.-Col. C. G.
Sutcliffe, H.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Leach, W.
Thomas, Dr. W. S. Russell (S'th'm'tn)


Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.
Lewis, O.
Thorneycroft, Maj. G. E. P. (Stafford)


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
Llewellin, Col. Rt. Hon. J. J.
Thurtle, E.


De Chair, S. S.
Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)
Tomlinson, G.


Denville, Alfred
Longhurst, Captain H. C.
Touche, G. C.


Dodd, J. S.
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.
Turton, R. H.


Doland, G. F.
Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard
Ward, Col. Sir. A. L. (Hull)


Donner, Squadron-Leader P. W.
Mabane, Rt. Hon. W.
Ward, Irene, M. B. (Wallsend)


Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V. G.
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Watt, F. C. (Edinburgh, Gen.)


Drewe, C
McCallum, Major D.
Watt, Brig. G. S. Harvie (Richmond)


Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)
MacDonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Wayland, Sir W. A.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Macdonald, Captain Peter (I. of W.)
Wells, Sir S. Richard


Eccles, D. M.
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Maitland, Sir. A. 
White, Sir Dymoke (Fareham)


Elliston, Captain Sir G. S.
Mander, G. le M.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Marlowe, Lt-Col. A.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Mathers, G.
Willink, Rt. Hon. H. U.


Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Mayhew, Lt-Col. J.
Windsor-Clive, Lt.-Col. G.


Fildes, Sir H.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P.
Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.


Fraser, Lt.-Col. Sir Ian (Lonsdale)
Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)
Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)


Fyfe, Major D. P. M.
Molson, A. H. E.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.
Morrison, Rt. Hon W. S. (Cirencester)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—


Garro Jones, G. M.
Murray, J. D. (Spennymoor)
Mr. Pym and Mr. Buchan-


Gates, Major E. E.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
Hepburn.


George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'broke)
Nunn, W.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 1, line 12, after "that", to insert "the whole or ".
The Clause provides that a local authority may deal with part or parts of their area consisting of land which has suffered extensive war damage. The right hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions has admitted that there may be areas where the whole of the land ought to be dealt with as an area of extensive war damage. It would appear that the wording of the Clause, as it stands, would prevent a local authority from coming along with a scheme for dealing with the whole of that area.
2.15 p.m.
I imagine that probably an area like Hull or Plymouth might very well wish to put up the case to my right hon. Friend that the whole of their area is an area of extensive war damage or the whole of the area of adjacent or contiguous land. The Amendment is put down to clarify the position so that it will permit a planning authority to plan the whole of the area rather than do it in part or parts. I think that my right hon. Friend may very well accept the Amendment because it carries out the intention that he has expressed on a number of occasions.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Henry Strauss): The case mentioned by my hon. Friend, where the whole area would have to be acquired under the procedure of this Clause, might arise, but I am advised that it is not very likely and that the words as they stand are sufficient to enable the whole area to be acquired in such a case. If my hon. Friend will withdraw the Amendment, I will undertake to look into the point and make certain that in a proper case the whole of the area could be acquired.

Mr. Silkin: I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will look into the matter, and on that understanding, and on the understanding that he will let me know the result of his investigations, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment. by leave, withdrawn.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, to leave out "shown to his satisfaction to," and to insert:
whereon a large proportion of the buildings have been destroyed or.

The purpose of the Amendment is to obtain a better definition of what is meant by "extensive war damage." The Debate that has taken place in the Committee has clearly shown the differences between large numbers of Members on both sides. We are anxious to see war damage and obsolete areas reconstructed as soon as possible, but we are not anxious to see the planner let loose all over the country to such an extent that no one will be able to say "This is my own little home." One of the best safeguards is to relieve the anxiety in the minds of a great number of people as to whether they will be permitted to stay in their homes or shops after the war. One of the first things people will ask is whether they are living in or adjacent to an area of extensive war damage, and if we could obtain from the Minister a definition of an area of extensive war damage, it would set the minds of many people at rest and they could feel they would not be interfered with. I am not suggesting that the words of my Amendment are the best that can be obtained, but they do give an idea of what an area of extensive war damage is. I want to know, first, what the word "extensive" means. Does it mean blocks of houses which have been destroyed? Suppose four or five houses are down, are the occupiers entitled to any reasonable belief that they can rebuild them? Such owners are worried and want to know whether they will be able to rebuild under the War Damage Act or will have to go somewhere else. I wish the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) were here, because he said. in all good faith, how nice it must be for a person to be told that he is to be taken out of his shop and given a more luxurious place when planning has been carried out. If, however, you asked the average man whether he would rather stay in his shop, or have a more luxurious shop produced by the planning authority elsewhere, you would find that he would rather stay in his present place.
I would also like a definition of "war damage." A great many people are worried whether they are going to have a cost of works payment or a value payment, or, indeed, any payment. Some are saying that they will be lucky if they get anything. I think they are wrong, for they will get a certain amount, but nothing near the value of their property. When they get a cost-of-works notice,


they will say, "Thank goodness, for it means that we shall be able to repair our houses or shops after the war." Now comes this Bill with the best of intentions, but it will create a great deal of anxiety, and these people will say, "We have been put put of our worries so far as war damage is concerned, but now comes the planning authority which says it is going to acquire the area of extensive war damage, and we wonder whether we come under that area or not." If the area is blitzed completely, they obviously come under it, but there are large areas in London of which it can be said that they are areas of extensive war damage, but they are all repairable and the areas are well designed. Will they be regarded as areas of extensive war damage under the Bill? I do not think that my right hon. Friend wants to give greater anxiety to a greater number of people than he is bound to give anxiety to, and he should, therefore, make some attempt to define the words.

Commander Bower: I wish to support the Amendment, though I am not convinced that its wording is the best that could have been devised. At the same time, I think that it goes a long way to removing certain uncertainties in the Bill. I support the Amendment, not only for the reasons advanced by my hon. and gallant Friend, but because I am not enamoured of the words of the Bill, which say of the Minister that it "must be shown to his satisfaction." In the last year or two we have had too many of these "Ministerial satisfactions. I fail to see why Bills of this sort, which are, after all, Measures to bridge the time between war and peace, should perpetuate these Ministerial satisfactions, of which many people have had unpleasant experience. The reason why most of us are here to-day is the satisfaction of the Home Secretary that we ought not to be shut up in the Isle of Man. It would be equally open to him to see that we were put away. I suggest that on every occasion when this phrase appears in a Bill it should be challenged and always omitted unless it is proved, to be absolutely necessary. I know it will be said that it has been used before, but I see no reason why it should be perpetuated.

Major Thorneycroft: Does my hon. and gallant Friend mean that the

Minister should have nothing to do with it at all, or that the whole thing should be subject to the courts?

Commander Bower: That is exactly the point I am making. The case might arise where an individual who has been expropriated might consider that his property was not damaged within the meaning of the Act, and the Minister might take the opposite view. Only in the most exceptional circumstances should the Minister be the judge in cases of that sort. I am all for people having free access to the courts of law and the independent judiciary. There is too much of making Ministers judges in their own cases.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reject the Amendment, if only for the reasons which have been adduced. It is true, as the hon. and gallant Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) said, that the phrase "shown to his satisfaction" has been employed in other Acts of Parliament and that in some connotations it has been subject to criticism, but it seems to me that it is the right and proper form to adopt here. We have set up a Minister of Town and Country Planning, and it is his job, having been appointed, to have something to do with town and country planning. The Clause deals with areas of extensive war damage, and if we omit the words to which the hon. and gallant Member objects the claim of a planning authority that an area was an area of extensive war damage will be enough. The Clause is designed to say that that shall not be enough, but that the authority must not only claim that an area is an area of extensive war damage, but it must be shown to the Minister that it is so. There must be some kind of central control in a Bill of this kind. The complaint that we have on this side is that there is not nearly enough of it. It is essential here in order that this shall be a planning Clause.
I take no objection to the wording of the Amendment. One could easily make some comment on the fact that both the hon. and gallant Members who have spoken have confessed to the weakness in the language, but I will not pursue it. Both the Amendment and the arguments which supported it would reduce, not only this Clause, but the whole Bill to


a nullity. We were given an example earlier to-day of the fatuity of planning where it was done in pieces. If we accepted the argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Col. Dower), the only planning we should have would be of those parts of towns which have been completely flattened out.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I cannot have the hon. and learned Member putting words into my mouth which are not correct. I do not agree with him in the least. I want to have planning in all the areas of extensive war damage, or in what we understand to be areas of extensive war damage, and in obsolete areas, but I do not want planning all over the country.

2.30 p.m.

Mr. Hughes: Planning all over the country has been effectively prevented by the rejection of the Amendment we discussed prior to this one. We are dealing now with areas of extensive war damage, and the suggestion is that we have to add the limiting provision:
whereon a large proportion of the buildings have been destroyed.
That means to say that you have to limit your planning to places where a large proportion of the buildings have gone. The Minister may consent to allow the planning authority to acquire an old building here or there where it is surrounded by rubble, but when it comes to a bigger extension than that, unless the proportion is large, you cannot include it in an area of extensive war damage. That was the whole purport of his speech.
I commend to his attention some of the replanning schemes which have been elaborated for places like Plymouth and Swansea, where one can see exactly what damage has taken place, and exactly how the planning authority proposes to rebuild. If the Amendment were accepted, very little of Plymouth and Swansea would get the benefit of Clause 1. All that would get it would be an odd patch here and there. It is bad enough for it to be limited to the area of extensive war damage but when, inside that, you have to limit your planning to places where a large proportion has been completely destroyed, you cease to have even a semblance of a plan or an approach to the rebuilding of a city as it should be

done. I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment.

Mr. Mack: When I look at the names of the hon. Members who support the Amendment, I am almost forced to the belief that they have a suspicion that the Minister will be inclined to be too broadminded and tolerant in respect of this part of the Bill. The words employed relate to land shown to the satisfaction of the Minister to have sustained war damage: who are the people who will show the Minister? I suggest that they will be the authority of the town or city concerned, and will be comprised of people of all political opinions, and various interests, business and otherwise. Because of their local knowledge and close, understanding of the situation they will be well equipped to pass a general judgment on the matters concerned and, in turn, to pass that judgment on to the Minister. Is it suggested that the Minister will be very narrow or, alternatively, too wide, in his application of his powers?
Then there is the question, What constitutes "a large proportion"? The Amendment proposes to insert words relating to a large proportion of buildings which have been destroyed, but the proportion may be over a half in some cases and only a quarter in others, or, in the centre of some blitzed cities, it may be even more than a half, anything up to 80 or 90 per cent. of the property, damaged extensively or destroyed as a result of enemy operations. I think we ought to have sufficient confidence in the Minister to give him power to act with the local people who can not only present him with a scheme of redevelopment but can acquaint the Minister with all the details appertaining thereto. The Amendment seems to cast a reflection on the Minister. If the Minister is to carry out this work successfully, he will do so only after the closest consultation with the local people, who are much better qualified even than he is to understand the needs of their localities. I do not feel there is any point in the Amendment or that this Committee would be well advised to support it.

Major Sir George Davies: A good deal of what we have been discussing is not really germane to the Amendment. The mover said that he was not wedded to the wards, but he is certainly wedded to the cutting out of certain words. The


Amendment does not cover the extent of the "large proportion," whether it is a half or only 25 per cent. of the places that have been destroyed. The real point is: Who is to decide whether an area has suffered extensive war damage? The mover of the Amendment has merely put up a warning sign that he has no use for this sort of decision being left in the ħands of the Minister. But the Amendment takes it from the hands of the Minister and leaves it in the air, like Mahomet's coffin. It does not say who is to decide, and whether we are to hold the Minister responsible for saying what is or is not an area of extensive war damage. I have no more use for bureaucracy on the Front Bench than have other hon. Members, but is seems to me that it is only common sense on this issue, to leave it as the Clause provides, which is that the Minister should be responsible. It is unthinkable that he would say that a space of five acres in the centre of London in which only two small buildings were damaged was an area of extensive war damage, and it is also unthinkable to leave a decision of that sort to the courts. It should be left to the commonsense provisions of our own constitution which hold the Minister in charge responsible for these things. We shall make a mistake if we accept the Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Is it not advisable that the Minister should give some final indication in the Bill of what is an area of extensive war damage?

Sir G. Davies: That is a counsel of perfection, because it is impossible to decide in advance. Each matter must be decided on its merits. There might be a place full of little narrow streets which you would be only too glad to get rid of, and, as there is substantial damage there, you declare it to be an area which should be opened up. We have to leave the decision somewhere and I think that it should be where the Bill provides, and that is, with the Minister.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: For once, I am able to say that I am in agreement with the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes). It seems to me that the Amendment is misconceived. The words "an area of extensive war damage" are only a label to be attached as a description,

and I do not think they can be improved upon. War damage is defined by the War Damage Act, 1943. The local authority has to show that part of their area has, to the satisfaction of the Minister, sustained war damage and should, together with other land adjacent thereto, be laid out afresh and re-developed as a whole. If those conditions are satisfied, then that area is labelled "an area of extensive war damage." I must confess that I do not think there is any need to alter the Bill at all, and it seems to me that this is one of the best drafted parts of the Bill. I therefore hope that the Amendment will not be accepted.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment, and I find myself in substantial agreement with the two fellow-lawyers who have spoken from opposite sides of the Committee. It was frankly admitted by the seconder that the effect of the Amendment would be to transfer the decision as to what constituted extensive war damage to the courts, but the reason why that would be most unsatisfactory was given by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Yeovil (Sir G. Davies) and others. It would be impossible to leave this question to the courts with the possibility that if the courts took a different view from the Minister, the whole Clause 1 Order could be upset. My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment said that he was not wedded to his own words, but I think whatever words of the kind he tried would have the same effect. It is not only the extent of the war damage which matters, but its distribution, which has a vital effect upon the area to be declared under the Clause. He did not suggest any possibility of defining what he meant by "a large proportion" and I do not think that the courts, if it were left to them. would find the words easy to construe.
Let me point out what the Minister has to be satisfied of, before an order can be made under the Clause. He has to be satisfied that three conditions have been fulfilled. The first is that the area defined by the order contains land which has sustained war damage. Secondly, he has to be satisfied that any other land in the area must be adjacent thereto, or contiguous as the result of an amendment which will later be moved to the Clause. The third requirement is that


the Minister must be satisfied that it is requisite for the purpose of dealing satisfactorily with extensive war damage that the area designated should be laid out afresh and redeveloped as a whole. Whether the damage is extensive has to be determined by the Minister. I suggest to the Committee that it must be the Minister alone who can make that determination. I do not know whether I can comfort my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the amendment by drawing his attention to a later Clause which is very relevant to one of the things which he had in mind, namely, the uncertainty in the mind of the owner of war damaged property.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: The owner including a leaseholder?

Mr. Strauss: I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend had Clause 27 in mind in moving his Amendment; if he had he would know that it modifies the hardship very considerably for the owner of war damaged property. The only other matter to which I would allude before I advise the Committee to reject the Amendment is the supposition that seems to underlie some of the speeches made in support of the Amendment, that there would be no opportunity for anybody to object to a Clause I order. That is, of course, not the case at all. I think the Committee as a whole is satisfied that it is not practicable if we are to make good progress in dealing with war damaged areas, to have the main question settled, not by the Minister but by the court. For the reasons I have given, and which were given by hon. Members who preceded me, I would invite the Committee to reject the Amendment.

2.45 p.m.

Mr. Nunn: There is one question which disturbs me a little, and I think a satisfactory answer might go some way towards satisfying my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower). It will be observed in line 14 that the Minister has to be satisfied that the area has sustained war damage, but the marginal note, which is not operative in law, refers to "extensive war damage." I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary could explain why there is that curious difference between the marginal note and the matter in the Clause?

Mr. Strauss: I think the answer is simple. If the hon. Member will look at line 23, he will find that the areas which we have been discussing are there defined as an "area of extensive war damage," and it is an area so defined to which references are made in the Bill, and therefore though the marginal note will not affect the construction, I would add in defence of the marginal note that I think it is quite right.

Mr. Nunn: May I then—

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): I am not sure we can discuss marginal notes here. I think we had better get on with the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 1, line 15, after "land," insert "contiguous or."
I understand this is a matter which has caused a certain amount of hilarity among some of my hon. Friends on account of the language difficulty, but the point of it is really quite simple. As it stands in the Bill the word used is "adjacent," and it is thought that, perhaps, on a very strict and meticulous interpretation of the word "adjacent," one would be prevented from adding to these areas a piece of land which was separated physically from the main body by some such thing as a road, or a little park, or open space. By adding the word "contiguous," which does mean "touching," another and wider meaning is given to "adjacent," and consequently it is a more apt description of the power which is sought to add land necessary to make a proper project of the whole reconstruction.

Mr. Pickthorn: The late Mr. Arthur Balfour was once reproached for making fine distinctions and he explained that distinction, like anything else, was all the better for being fine. I think that is true; and in this fine distinction I should have thought the Committee ought to have been a little clearer on which side of the line either of the two words lies. If I understand my right hon. Friend's remarks, he seemed to be making a distinction which is the opposite of the natural one, and I really think we ought to have the point perfectly clear. In the ordinary use of language, and with all due respect to anyone who


has a dictionary in his pocket, it would appear to me that "contiguous" means something actually touching, and that "adjacent" means something near, though there may be some small rift between it and the point of reference. My right hon. Friend seemed to take exactly the opposite line. I think if we are to put these words in the Bill, we ought to be quite sure of their meaning and intention.

Sir Joseph Lamb: How will this affect the Amendment which is down in my name to leave out "adjacent there to," and insert "in the vicinity thereof"? I did raise the point with your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Williams, and he said that it would be convenient if both questions were discussed at the same time.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Gentleman's Amendment is not selected, but I suggest that as it is merely a question of wording, he might discuss his point here and the grounds on which he thinks he has the better words.

Sir J. Lamb: I am much obliged. I do not think there is much difference between us with regard to the object we have in view. It is a question of the selection of words. Words are used to convey meaning but they do not convey the same meaning to all minds. Particularly, I understand, all legal men do not attach the same meaning to the words "contiguous" and "adjacent," and there has been a considerable amount of litigation on this particular question. Consequently, if legally trained minds can find differences which are material in the construction of these words, we should give consideration to what words we use. The Minister is proposing to put in the Bill "contiguous or adjacent thereto." I am told that the legal men now say that will cause difficulties, and I am assured it would be much better if the words suggested in my Amendment were put in. I am rather strengthened in this by what the Minister is proposing to do in an Amendment he has down to Clause 10, I must not discuss the Amendment, but I think I am entitled to refer to words he is using in his Amendment in page 15, line 27. The words are "in the neighbourhood of." I think" in the vicinity thereof" is not much different from that. We have not

had the advantage of knowing what the legal men say against that, but we have the advantage of knowing their objection to the word which it is proposed to put in. If the Minister would care to use my words as against his I should be perfectly happy. I have paid him the compliment of copying him as nearly as I can without infringing any copyright.

Sir P. Harris: If my right hon. Friend wants to put in the two words I am satisfied, but "contiguous" is no adequate substitute. I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) that "adjacent" is wider than "contiguous." If he likes to keep both words I shall be satisfied.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): I think this is all right. Let me explain what we are doing, and why we are doing it. The Bill, as originally drafted, contained simply the word "adjacent." It was suggested in some quarters that that might be narrowly construed as meaning ".touching" when in fact it stood alone. We, therefore, decided to add the word "contiguous," and the Bill as amended will read "contiguous or adjacent." In that context it is quite obvious that "adjacent" must have its normal wider meaning and could not be considered as simply meaning touching. This has been looked at carefully by the draftsmen from the point of view of the legal decisions to which my hon. Friend has referred. I think it is all right. My hon. Friend said that legally "contiguous or adjacent" might still cause difficulties. If he will give us the benefit of that advice and the grounds upon which it is based we will certainly look at it again, but we are certain we are right. It is purely a drafting point.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Has not the word "adjacent" been considered in the courts? I seem to remember a case which went before the Lord Chief Justice where it was held that "adjacent" meant touching, if my recollection is right. It does not seem to me that the meaning of the word "adjacent" will be in any way altered by prefacing it with the words "contiguous or," which seem to me to mean the same thing.

The Attorney-General: That is where I differ from my hon. Friend. It is because the word "adjacent" stands alone, that it might be considered, not in


its ordinary sense but in a narrow sense "touching," that "contiguous" should be put in. I hope the Committee will let us have the Amendment, and I will look at it again to see if there is any doubt about it.

Sir J. Lamb: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not reconsider his decision and accept the words which I suggest make the position quite clear? If he did so he would have an opportunity to give further consideration to the matter.

Mr. Erskine-Hill: Would my right hon. and learned Friend consider whether it might not be a good plan to adopt the suggestion in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb), but instead of leaving out "adjacent thereto," put in "adjacent thereto or in the vicinity thereof"? That seems to get both points and settle the matter satisfactorily.

The Attorney-General: I think the words suggested are not the best, but I will undertake to consider all the various permutations and combinations of the words on the Order Paper.

Mr. Woodburn: Can we have an assurance that the Minister will not interpret the words too strictly when he comes to decide on a case?

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 1, line 19, to leave out "within," and to insert "before the expiration of".
The object of the Amendment is to take the period of five years in which local authorities must decide whether to submit Orders under Clause 1, not from the passing of the Act but from a date to be appointed. I hope the Committee will agree that this is a wise precaution. We are legislating in a period of war for peace. The date of the passing of the Act, and the time when it is appropriate for local authorities to commence these applications, are both unknown to us, and local authorities themselves are very hard pressed with all sorts of work at the moment, and I think it would be better to have the appointed day instead of merely the effluxion of time taken to pass the Bill. The intention is, of course, to call upon local authorities as soon as is reasonably possible for them to set about the work of submitting these Orders, so

that when the time to rebuild comes the work can proceed as rapidly as possible.

Mr. Woodburn: I would like to ask the Minister how he explains that the change of words will accomplish the object of his Amendment of extending the time.

Mr. Morrison: This is introductory to another Amendment which says "before the expiration of a certain period."

Mr. Craven-Ellis: This is a Clause which provides that the local authority shall acquire land within five years. The point I want to raise is this. Supposing Mr. A. has a plot of land upon which his property has been destroyed, which is adjacent to or contiguous to other land, which is also to be acquired; if he desires to proceed with the development of his site, will he be prevented from doing it for five years, because the local authority have not made up their minds regarding the adjacent plot?

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Morrison: The date which we are proposing in this Amendment deals with the time limit within which a local planning authority must submit one of these Class 1 orders for confirmation. It is the duty of the local authority to make it run from the date to be fixed instead of from the passing of the Act. That is all it is.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: I am sorry, but that is not a reply to my question. It does not remove the uncertainty of Mr. "A." Mr. "A" is still liable to be held up for five years. He may submit his plan to a local authority who may disapprove of it on the ground of the hypothetical case that within five years they may desire to purchase the site.

Mr. Morrison: That is dealt with in Clause 27 of the Bill, which gives the owner certain rights against the local authority—to make the local authority make up its mind about purchasing a property.

Amendment agreed to.

The Deputy-Chairman: As the next two Amendments deal with the question of time I suggest that we now have a discussion on the number of years to cover both.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I beg to move. in page 1, line 20, to leave out "five," and insert "two."


This is an Amendment of some substance and it is one about which a great many hon. Members feel very strongly. I have not yet heard once from my hon. Friends above the Gangway a single doubt expressed of the very serious anxiety which a large number of people will feel as to the scope of this Bill. Whereas they have shown that earnestness which I admire in the brave planning which they would like to see carried out, they have avoided completely saying how much, and in what way, they are concerned with those unfortunate people who will unquestionably be displaced and for whom there will be no alternative accommodation. It is all very well to say that you are going to clear an area, and take an overspill area for the people who are displaced, but in nine times out of ten, you would displace those people who, in turn, would displace somebody else, and so it would go on like a rolling stone. Therefore, I feel that I am justified in saying that this period should be limited in conformity with the object that the Minister has in mind.
I do not intend to repeat my arguments on the desirability of this, but one or two points may have escaped hon. Members above the Gangway. Not only is there the doubt and uncertainty of the business man whether he can build up his goodwill after the war. He has probably been called up and has lost everything. He has to start all over again, and the first thing he is going to say is "Now that the war is over, perhaps they will leave me in peace." But his worry will be immense, if the next day, or a few days after, he is told "I do not know whether your shop is going to be acquired, but I have heard a rumour that there is a plan in some back room which will have the effect of sweeping you away." That raises all kinds of issues. Is he entitled to give notice under his lease? Is he entitled to look for other premises? The first thing that man will want to do is to get away to an area where he will feel safe, where he will be left alone and where he can get on recovering all the damage the war has done to him. These are reasons why I want to see the period of uncertainty limited to as short a time as possible.
Then, again, we are told that we have to encourage enterprise after the war. We are told that the State is going to

encourage all kinds of enterprise, that private enterprise is to be made healthy and that it will play an important part in the new world. I can tell my right hon. Friend that it will play an important part in this country after the war. We believe in individual enterprise. Under this Bill, there will be doubt for five years in a large number of areas whether they will be included in its scope, and there will be no development. There will be no extension of businesses, and no risks will be taken if the people concerned cannot feel security behind them. Hon. Members, I am sure, will agree with me that to have a long lease behind one gives one security, and enables one to get on with the job. With a short lease, one does not feel like doing anything. Nobody knows where they will be in a short time. Unless this period is limited to the shortest possible space of time, a lot of harm will be done, not only in homes and businesses, but by paralysing the development of industry and of trade.
I think I would also be justified in saying that there will be a hold-up in the repair of bomb damage work. I do not know whether hon. Members above the Gangway will agree with me, but I am told by people who have done a lot of bomb damage work that they seldom get all the repairs paid for out of the War Damage Commission. Owners have to put their hands into their own pockets. I do not think that householders who feel that their homes are going to be taken under this Bill will be inclined to get on with repairs. I think they will let them go, and will not maintain the property. They are not going to take the trouble to put the property into good condition, when it is to be knocked down in a short time. There will be a feeling of uncertainty in every big area in this country. The least the Minister can do is to reduce that period of uncertainty—which is created just at a time when we do not want uncertainty—to the very minimum.
The object of my right hon. Friend's Bill, I gather, was to get on with the job. Is it encouraging to the planning authorities to get on with their job if there is uncertainty for five years? It is an exaggeration to suggest that for five years they should do nothing, but a lot of planning authorities will have that in mind. They will say that on the last day


of the fifth year they will be able to say "This is the area we want." We want to see these areas designated at the first available moment, so that the people who are to be affected will know where they stand and will be able to make alternative arrangements, and so that the planning and reconstruction of these particular areas can be brought about as soon as possible. I do not want to take up the time of the Committee unduly, and I think I have made my points. I know that other hon. Members of this Committee feel with me that this period should be reduced and that the shorter the period the less harm it will do the country. I would ask my right hon. Friend to see whether he cannot consider this Amendment. We want private enterprise to be able to get on with restoration after the war, and we want planning as quickly as we can get it. Above all, we want to finish with this period of paralysis and uncertainty which is bound to arise after the cessation of hostilities.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of Order. You intimated, Mr. Williams, that you thought it desirable to discuss this Amendment and the following one together. I submit that it might be helpful to the Committee if we also discussed the Amendment after that, in the name of the Minister, which deals with the date for making applications. That would give my right hon. Friend an opportunity of telling us what he has in mind about appointing a day. If he had in mind a day two years after the end of the war, that would make the period of five years one of seven years. It is very difficult to discuss the length of the period, when we do not know when the period is going to begin.

The Deputy-Chairman: I am in the hands of the Committee, but it strikes me that the length of the time and the day are quite separate points, and I think it would be better to discuss them separately. That would seem to me a more practical method.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I desire to support the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut-Colonel Dower), although not for exactly the same reasons as those which he advanced. It seems to me that five years is a very long time to allow a local authority to put forward an application for an Order from the Minister that an area should be treated as one of war

damage. We all want to get reconstruction effected as speedily as possible. It is my experience that if you give people a long time in which to do things they are not apt to move very speedily. It is from that angle that I support the Amendment. I am in favour of the period being cut down to two years. It seems to me that in that period any efficient, able, and industrious local authority can do all that it is required to do under the Clause. Let us consider what it has to do. It has to make an application for an Order that an area is one of extensive war damage, which requires to be laid out afresh. It has to submit that application with maps and plans, showing the lay-out and what is required to be done. I should have thought that the majority of local authorities would be in a position to submit such an application to the Minister within one year with regard to any area of extensive war damage That is one ground on which I support the Amendment.
Such a long period as five years seems to me likely to defeat the real object of this part of the Bill. It would be likely to result in delaying reconstruction. Looking at it from the angle of private enterprise—assuming that Members will agree that private enterprise must be allowed to, play some part in rebuilding—what is likely to be the effect of this five years on the development of land which is adjacent to or contiguous to areas of war damage? Will any owner of such land do anything to it between now and 1949 if he thinks that there is a possibility that an application may be made in 1949 to have that land treated as an area of extensive war damage? It seems to me that the chance of the owner doing anything to such land is slight, and, therefore, the effect of making the period so long is likely to be considerable sterilisation and not reconstruction in the areas where action is most needed.

3.15 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Lawson: As we are discussing the two Amendments which relate to the question of time, I would like to say that my Amendment, which proposes to leave out "five" and to insert "twenty," was, intended to be consequential upon a previous Amendment in my name being carried. If this Bill had been turned into a real Town Planning Bill, providing comprehensive powers, I would have thought that a longer time was necessary, but,


seeing that it is not going to be a real Town Planning Bill but a Bill of very limited scope, I am quite satisfied to see five years maintained as the period, because by the end of that time people will have to have another Bill.

Sir P. Harris: The two speeches which we have heard in favour of curtailing the time contained rather different arguments. One was based upon the argument that the Amendment would speed up the authorities and leave no hang-over. The other contained the argument that it was rather hard upon the owners to have to wait this length of time before they saw whether they could develop their property. I would remind both hon. Members that the period of five years begins from the commencement of the Act. Hon. Members seem to forget that the war is not over, and, although I do not like to say it, neither even is the danger of a blitz. I hope that I am wrong—I am on the whole an optimist—but I must say that there is a danger of this war dragging on for quite a considerable period. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs have both warned us not to be unduly optimistic. Apart from that, it would he fatal for owners of property to prejudice the redevelopment of blitzed areas by rushing forward to develop their property, thus spoiling the whole replanning of the area. I believe that the period that my right hon. Friend has proposed in the Bill is the right period. I like to support my right hon. Friend sometimes, because of my personal admiration for his character, and on this occasion I support him in retaining the words in the Bill, which I think meet the case.

Sir J. Mellor: I would like to support the Amendment. It seems to me that five years is an unnecessarily long time to allow for making applications, and that this would be a far better Clause if it provided for more speed in making applications and less haste in considering them. There is an extraordinary contrast between the period of five years allowed for making applications and the hasty procedure that follows. The Bill does not even provide for notice to be given as a right to the owners of the property affected.
I really think that, if there is to be so much hurry in dealing with applications,

there should be a shorter time for making applications. The limit will be slightly extended—we do not know how much—by the next Amendment in the name of the Minister, substituting an appointed day for the passing of the Act as the basis on which the five years will run. I think it is very undesirable that the possibility of application being made should be hanging over the heads of people affected for so long a period as five years. I support the Amendment.

Mr. Silkin: I think the Committee will agree that it is desirable that areas of extensive war damage should be redeveloped as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it is equally desirable that the proper preparation of schemes should not be interfered with, and the question which this Committee has to decide is what is the proper time to meet both requirements. In my view, five years is a reasonable period. It seems to me that those who advocated a shorter period have not considered seriously what is involved in submitting a scheme to the Minister. It is very easy to draw a line round an area and say "This is an area of extensive war damage," and draw another line and say "This is an area of replacement," but I think the local authorities will require to have more responsibility than that, because they have to show which area needs to be dealt with at once and have to satisfy the Minister that the hest way of dealing with it is by re-development.
Furthermore, this submission has to be accompanied by particulars showing how the area is to be redeveloped. It is not sufficient merely to say that we think it should be redeveloped; we have to show how we propose to develop it, and it is not a simple procedure. Some authorities may have quite a number of such areas to deal with, and I imagine they will want to deal with them consecutively. They will start with one area, make up their minds about that, and go on to the next and so on until they have dealt with them all.
We have also to bear in mind that the governing factor is that of staff. To prepare an area and show how it is proposed to develop it, means that a considerable staff of technical persons, who are certainly not available now and who may not be available for a long time to come, will be the governing factor, and


I think it ridiculous to suggest that, because they have five years, local authorities will all wait until the five years are nearly up, and submit a host of schemes to the Minister.
There is another thing. Suppose they were forced, by the acceptance of this Amendment, to submit a large number of half-baked schemes to the Minister. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]Oh, yes, half-baked schemes, without proper consideration of the way in which the area has to be redeveloped. Suppose they submit these schemes. What then? They would still not be in a position to carry out the succeeding stages. After all, it is not sufficient merely to submit a scheme to the Minister and even for the Minister to make an order. After that, you have to get your Compulsory Purchase Orders and carry out the acquisition of the properties, and may I say that, in some areas, it will be a very considerable task merely to acquire the property? I understand that, in the central area of Coventry, there are about 1,000 separate owners of property, and to have a large number of schemes prepared in this half-baked way to be dealt with by the local authorities, and for them to have to deal with the enormous amount of acquisitions involved, would not be an advantage to the property-owner, who would still have to wait until the local authority was able to deal with him. It is far better to give them a reasonable amount of time.
I am satisfied that five years is not excessive, on the assumption that the local authorities do carry out their work right throughout the period and do not wait until the last day. It will be the job of the Minister to jockey them, and to see that those authorities proposing to put up schemes do so right throughout the period. I am satisfied that it is not too long; that local authorities could not properly discharge their duties under this Bill if the period was shortened and that, in the long run, it would not be an advantage to those for whom the Movers of the Amendment speak. They would still be left in uncertainty. You might, it is true, get the scheme advanced to a certain point, but you would not get a decision any sooner, because the position is still governed by the available staff, which would still be short. I hope that, in all the circumstances, the Committee will accept the Clause as it stands.

Mr. Erskine-Hill: I think I could not disagree more profoundly than I do with the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin). I think he does less than justice to the local authorities, who have, after all, been studying this question for years and who have, or ought to have, plans in their minds and who ought to be perfectly willing to put their plans into operation in two years.

Mr. Silkin: Could I ask my hon. and learned Friend if he does not realise that, in this Clause, the local authorities are limited to areas of extensive war damage, and, until the war is over, they could not say what are the areas of extensive war damage?

Mr. Erskine-Hill: That may well be, but the hon. Gentleman takes a pessimistic view. He may be right or wrong, but, at any rate, the broad lines of it must be in being now and could be adjusted from time to time if further damage takes place. This Committee must recognise that, and expect the local authorities to speed up these measures as far as possible, and if, by any chance, we are wrong in making the limit two years, the Minister can easily come back to the House and say, "We find by experience that two years is not enough" and get a short amending Bill passed through the House. I think it is a perfectly reasonable limit of time.
I disagree entirely with the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris), who said there was nothing in the argument of the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). What is there contradictory in saying that you must try to speed up the operation of this Bill and get the necessary work done as soon as possible and saying that the effect of putting too long a period may be to sterilise private business enterprise? In this work you want to have the local authorities working full out and business enterprise working full out, too. You want to work for every possible means of remedying the disastrous effect of war, and you can only do it if you have both business enterprise and the local authority. I think the effect of allowing the local authorities to have too long a time will be to sterilise private enterprise, because, as long as any person, who is anxious, individually, to proceed with the work, has hanging over him the possibility of compulsory acquisition by the


local authority, he will not be able to work with the same freedom or interest, and for that reason I support the Amendment.

3.30 p.m.

Mr. Colegate: This Amendment brings before the Committee a very real dilemmna with which we are faced and I do not think certain hon. Members opposite have altogether realised that dilemma. Practically every manufacturer has now received from the Board of Trade an invitation to state what his factory requirements are and whether he wishes an extension or to build a new factory and in what locality. Private manufacturers, after being asked by the Board of Trade to get to work and to decide where they want the sites of their factories, are to be placed in an impossible position if they are then told "Unless you go to a non-blitzed area your plans are subject to interference during the whole of the next five years." That is a very serious position. It is important for the blitzed areas to get on with the building of new houses, but it is no good building houses for the people if there is no work for them to go to. The two things go pari passu—the house and the factory. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) did not seem to realise that fact. He drew a picture of the difficulties of local authorities who have no prepared scheme. I am in full sympathy with him. It is difficult, but what is the position of those authorities to be if in three or four years' time they put down their plans and say, "These are dwellings, here is a church, and here is an area where factories are to be," and they turn round and find that the manufacturers want to put their factories elsewhere? It will be during the next five years, or even the next three or four years, after the end of the war that the great period of factory building will be needed, or the taking over of existing Government factories, which already the Government, through the Board of Trade, are pressing upon us now to decide. This may be a dilemma and I have not heard a suggestion of how it is to be met.
I see the very grave danger that many blitzed areas will find, too late, that factories which might have come there have already been placed elsewhere, be-

cause they had received a guarantee that they would be left there to develop in an undisturbed way. I ask the Minister to deal with that point and see whether some compromise is not possible on the words of the Amendment, perhaps if not two years, three years, so that when we answer the Board of Trade and give them particulars of the new factories which we want, we shall at the same time know that our work has not been wasted, and that, if we plan for a particular factory, we shall have the chance of putting it down and developing it.

Mr. Cocks: The last two speakers are under the impression that five years is a minimum instead of a maximum. It was suggested that every local authority who wanted to rebuild should take the maximum amount of time before they sent in their plans to the Ministry.

Mr. Erskine-Hill: We want to decrease the maximum time so as to ensure that the work is done in the shortest time.

Mr. Cocks: I am aware of that, but the assumption is that local authorities will be sluggish, slow, deliberately slow. While some people would wish to delay in improving their cities as long as they are allowed under the Bill. surely, the attitude of most local authorities—I should say all local authorities—would be to get on with the work as quickly as possible and to repair their blitzed areas. They do not want to have gaps in the middle of their town or city year after year.

Major Woolley: There would be an element of uncertainty over the whole period of five years even with these local authorities.

Mr. Cocks: Is it not the fact that local authorities would complete their plans in one or two years?

Mr. Colegate: They might produce a plan in one or two years, but there is nothing under the Bill to prevent them extending that plan during any of the remaining period of five years, and therefore, uncertainty would continue.

Mr. Cocks: In certain cases. The hon. Member is assuming that it would be five years, and I suggest that in a great many cases it would be less than that. It would be as short a term as it takes local authorities to get their plans through.

Sir Herbert Williams: Will it be as long as the Government took to consider the Uthwatt Report before they introduce the Bill?

Mr. Cocks: I do not think so. Local authorities want to rebuild their towns. It is not a question of political action, but of getting sites and rebuilding. If hon. Members would turn to Sub-sections (3) and (4) of the Clause, they will see the number of things that the local authority has to do. It has to decide what is a war damaged area and exactly how it is to be laid-out or developed. It has to produce a complete plan of internal arrangements or the intended lay-out of the surrounding locality. There is a lot of work there. We all want to see layouts and decent planning. There will naturally be a limited number of architects and expert planners who can do the work. I saw it suggested the other day that an institute should be set up to train people to help in this work. That would take a long time. I suggest that in five years, when local authorities find they cannot get their plans laid before that period, they would be allowed to do it, because they would have tried to produce their plans at an earlier period. The hon. Member opposite introduced the point about industries and said that those concerned would find, in planning a city, that there was to be an industry here, or an industry there, and the industry would have gone somewhere else. Planning is not to be done that way. The local authority would have a clear point of view as to what the industry was to be and who would occupy the factory.

Mr. Colegate: Surely, the hon. Member knows that many plans have already been submitted. There is the celebrated case of Letchworth, where a whole area was designated as suitable for factories and other areas where they were not allowed to put factories. They did not know at Letchworth what factories would come to them.

Mr. Cocks: Letchworth is a Garden City built on a countryside, but there are old and well-established towns like Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Plymouth and Bristol all of which have their industries. In most cases there is no reason to suppose that those industries would go elsewhere. Plans will no doubt be allotted to paper mills which have been there before.

Sir H. Williams: If the plan has not been made, they cannot do it.

Mr. Cocks: But do you not suppose that when the plan is being made they will be informed about the suggestions, so that they can make observations of their own on this point? That is how these things are done. If, say, the Corporation of Plymouth were to draw up their plans, they would consult local industries as to their views on the matter. All that would be brought in, together with the general plan as drawn up by the architect. It is only a matter of commonsense and, therefore, I think the five years should stand.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I hope that the Minister will take account of the powerful arguments of the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) and decide against this Amendment. There seems to have been a thread running through the Debate on this Amendment of something amounting to distrust and hostility between local authorities and industry. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) talked about uncertainties between industry and local authorities. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower), who proposed the Amendment, talked rather in that vein too. I cannot understand why there should be this supposed antagonism. It is obviously going to be the case that when local authorities start planning and developing their schemes they will take into account all the industrial needs of their own community. I had a case in my constituency last week where a local body is considering plans for the future of the constituency after the war. The first thing they do is to invite industrial representatives to come and consult with them as to whether they will take sites, what prospects there are for putting up factories, and so on, and all this planning which will take place will take into account all the needs of industry. Therefore I do not understand the fear that their needs will not be satisfied.

Mr. Colegate: I do not hink we have any distrust of local authorities. I do not think my Noble Friend has quite got the point. Let me take a case. The Board of Trade is offering particular factories. Will anyone give us an assurance


that if we take a particular factory, it will not be affected by town planning? There is no distrust of the local authority, it is just a fact that the uncertainty is there, as it must be under this Bill.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment used words like this, "We want the period to be as short as two years so that the local authority's plan can be completed and the least harm is thus done to the country." There is a kind of fear on the part of some hon. Members that the planning must be done as soon as possible to get rid of the idea of local authorities having anything to do with planning—

Hon. Members: No, no—

Mr. Colegate: Answer my question.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: —and then let private enterprise come in and take over. That is a most unhappy state of affairs. The two things must go hand in hand. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham in what he said about the complexity of all this planning. We have only to look at the second page of the Bill to see the various stages which have to be gone through in very great detail before anything can be done. There is no doubt of this; it is laid down there at great length, and we shall debate it in due course. Obviously these things are going to take a great deal of time. Many local authority officials, architects, builders and town planners are still in the Forces and are unable to be released.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: May I ask the Noble Lord one question? He said that all these things will take a long time, but I understood from his previous remarks that there was some area of extensive war damage in his constituency in respect of which planning was almost complete at the present moment.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: It is not what could be described as extensive damage, although I am happy to say that Weymouth claims the honour of having received the first blows of the blitz in the summer of 1940. However that may be, I want to say that I support my hon. Friend and those who press the Minister to see that this period is not reduced to two years.

3.45 P.m.

Mr. Pickthorn: It seems to me that the Committee is getting into a rather ironic situation. I, myself, have never had any very great passion for the van of progress. Fond as I am of pigs, the first of the Gaderene swine was never my prime favourite; but to-day we have had all the spokesmen of the van of progress, one after the other, not so much urging us to whip up their van, but urging us that they must take longer and longer before even they decide whether they wish to put the horses in facing North or South. Everything that has been said by those who urge progress and revolution upon us has been along the line that we really cannot expect even local authorities to begin making up their minds about the sort of plan they want for a very long period. One hon. Gentleman opposite even seemed to suggest that the thing was going to take generations, because as far as I could gather from him, you could not expect the local authorities to do it until Professor Abercrombie had trained young gentlemen to come and tell them how to do it. As one who has spent much of his time trying to train young gentlemen to do much easier things than planning England, I can tell the hon. Gentleman opposite that it cannot be done in five minutes; it wants very much longer.
The Noble Lord the Member for Southern Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) seemed to find and hostility and controversy in the oddest places. He seemed to find it among those who suggest that the figure "2" is a smaller figure than the figure "5." I do not know how he worked it out in his own mind, but that seemed to him to be evidence of a most regrettable state of hostility to local authorities—that two years should be thought a shorter period than five years. I am very sorry for the Noble Lord's proclivity for finding reprehensible motives in the minds of others. The fact is that two years is a shorter period than five years, and it is quite clear that, if for five years owners and persons interested in land and buildings in a particular district cannot be sure of what is to happen to that land and buildings, there will be a longer period of uncertainty than there would be if the period of two years were taken. I cannot really demonstrate this now to the Noble Lord because that would be taking up the time of the rest of the Committee perhaps


excessively, but I do beg him to believe that that is the fact.

Viscountess Astor: May I ask what is the fact?

Mr. Pickthorn: That two is less than five.

Viscountess Astor: No wonder the hon. Gentleman never taught the boys anything.

Sir H. Williams: I cannot understand why it is that people who dub themselves "progressive," are always in favour of dilatoriness. All the support for five years so far comes from the young Pinks and the old Reds. After all, we had an intolerabe period of delay before the production of this Bill. The situation is tragic, and if this Bill became law tomorrow, over wide areas of our country nobody could build anything, either factory or house. Unless we force people, by giving them a time limit, to make decisions, the tragedy will continue. It is true that many wise local authorities Lave been thinking out what they propose to do, and the foreseeing ones will be able to do it, I think, in two years, because, after all, it is not requisite in the two years to come along with the complete plan. However, you should come along with what I will call the negative part of your plan, that part in which you say "Thou shalt not build a factory here" and "Thou shalt not put a road there." The primary decisions of town and country planning are the negative decisions, leaving people free to get on with the rest. But if we are held back by people who think they are progressive we shall have vast unemployment in this country and no houses.

Captain Cobb: My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) was under a complete misapprehension when he expressed the view that if the period were reduced from five years to two it would lead to a great deal of hasty and ill-considered development. That fear is completely unfounded. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) appeared to think that within this period of two years a local authority will be expected to present detailed schemes of development, but that is not my reading of the Bill. I imagine that the sort of schemes for which the Minister's approval will be sought will be schemes very much like those which my

hon. Friends and I who served on the London County Council Housing Committee for many years used to present to the Minister of Health before having areas scheduled as slum clearance areas. But when we submitted those schemes for the Minister's approval, and obtained it, they were not in any sense detailed schemes; they were schemes showing the general plan which the authority expected to carry out and that, surely, will be the procedure which will be adopted for the blitzed and blighted areas. Many hon. Members appear to think that this reduction from five years to two constitutes an attack on the local authorities.
Some Members have gone so far as to infer that every local authority walks about with a halo over its head and never does any wrong. That may be true of a great number of local authorities—I was a member of an extremely good one for five years; it is not such a good one now, because it has changed its party colour—but we know that there is a number of local authorities in the country which cannot possibly be considered good, progressive or efficient. A great number consist of members who, without knowing it, have been dead for many years and it will be in the hands of those local authorities to carry out these schemes. I cannot see why there should be such a violent difference of opinion between Members as has been shown in this Debate. Surely we all have the same object in view. We want to enable these areas to return to the sort of life which they led previously, or rather, to return to a better laid-out life, with the least possible delay, and it would be good value to insist that those local authorities shall make up their minds more quickly. It is because I want these schemes to be presented as early as possible that I support the Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam: I would like to ask the Minister what are the powers, if any, that he has to hurry up a local authority which has been dilatory? I think a good deal depends upon that. I do not believe that local authorities are likely to be dilatory; I think they will try to get their towns going again as soon as possible and, therefore, I do not view with any real fear this period of five years. But, as has just been said, there may be some local authorities who are dead without knowing it, and it should


be possible for the Minister to remind them that they are alive.

Mr. Lewis: The hon. Member for Peck-ham (Mr. Silkin) laid great stress on the difficulties in which local authorities would find themselves in attempting to prepare schemes owing to the shortage of skilled staff. The Noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) was impressed by the same argument. No doubt that would be a very powerful argument if the Bill were to remain as it is now printed but the Minister has intimated, by an Amendment which he has placed on the Order Paper, that he does not propose that the Bill should remain as it is. He proposes to substitute for the words
the commencement of this Act,
the words
such date as the Minister may by order appoint …
That completely disposes of that argument. The Minister will not choose the appointed day until local authorities have their skilled staffs. If it is practicable for them to make applications it seems that two years is not an unreasonable time. I think two years will not be reasonable if it was from the commencement of the Act but with the intimation that the Minister has given that he proposes to move an Amendment later the case for the Amendment we are now discussing is immensely strengthened.

Mr. Molson: My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) has frequently referred to one of the Government's difficulties being that there are lunatic fringes on both sides of the House, and by a strange coincidence when one looks at the Order Paper one sees two Amendments standing together—one in the name of Members representing the Common Wealth Party, and the other in the name of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower) and some of his friends. I think the Government on this occasion should stand on their original intention which, I think, represents the happy mean between the two points of view. [An HON. MEMBER: "Between what?"]The happy mean between the two lunatic fringes.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: May I ask, Major Milner, to whom the hon. Member was referring when he said "lunatic,"

and whether it is in Order to refer to an hon. Member as a lunatic?

Mr. Molson: I was referring to fringes, Major Milner. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) made quite plain his own attitude towards this Bill when he talked about the Gadarene swine. I think the Government will realise that as regards a considerable number of supporters of this Amendment it is intended to be a wrecking Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I can assure my hon. Friend that it is not intended to be a wrecking Amendment in any sense of the word. It has two objects—to get rid of slothfulness in planning and to reduce the period of anxiety.

Mr. Molson: In that case I apologise to my hon. and gallant Friend. I had not previously associated him with zeal in the cause of planning. I fully accept, and welcome, the explanation he has given. I say to him that some of those who have been interested in this matter for some time, and who are not ashamed to call ourselves "Progressives," do not believe that it is necessarily a good thing to be in too much of a hurry and to ask local authorities to prepare effective plans for the whole of their blitzed areas, and areas adjacent thereto, and do it within two years. What is being asked for in this Amendment is that plans shall be prepared and laid before the Minister.

Sir H. Williams: No, read what it says. No precise plan is required but the general nature of the development. It is quite different.

4.0 P.M.

Mr. Molson: I would ask my hon. Friend to read Sub-sections (3) and (4) of the Clause that he is proposing to amend. When an Amendment is moved which is going to require the local authorities to make this application to the Minister of Town and Country Planning within two years, it is necessary for them to comply with the various requirements of this Clause. Therefore it is necessary for them to have made the plans and prepared maps before they make applications to the Minister. As my Noble Friend has pointed out, these blitzed areas were blitzed in the course of the war. During that time a very large number of officials who would be concerned with the replanning of the


town have been in the Army, and it is only fair and reasonable to allow these local authorities a reasonable time in which to make their plans. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will resist the Amendment, which would only have the effect of limiting the discretion of the local authorities. I do not believe there is any need to limit their discretion in order to bring home to them the urgency of the task that has been forced upon them by enemy action.

Mr. Craik Henderson: I think it is unfortunate that the last speaker, in discussing an Amendment which many of us support because we believe it will be to the advantage not only of the planning authorities themselves but to the people for whom they plan, should have felt justified in making the charge that he did against those who support the Amendment. There is always the danger with planners that they get so obsessed with planning that they forget that the plans are on behalf of people. The persons here on whose behalf they are planning are those in the blitzed areas. These people want to know where they can erect factories and houses. The areas also want to attract new industries. You cannot attract new industries with five years' uncertainty hanging over their heads; they will not know for five years where they can go and what they can do. I hope my right hon. Friend will carefully consider this Amendment, because we shall be doing a grave injustice to the blitzed areas if we do not reduce the period to as short a time as possible.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: Perhaps it will assist the Committee if I intervene in this brisk and interesting skirmish to try to indicate how the argument has appeared to me. What we are dealing with are areas of extensive war damage, and it is to them that we are applying the procedure outlined in Clause 1. I think my hon. Friends have to some extent concentrated only on one aspect of the Clause 1 procedure but it really tries to achieve two things at the same time. It tries, by dealing with an application for the area as a whole and settling the project for good and all, to effect a certain amount of expedition in the necesary compulsory acquisition. The other feature of the process is equally, if not more, important, that when the battered cities are restored they shall be

restored upon a proper plan which makes it a more worthy place to live in, and it is from that point of view that I would ask the Committee seriously to ponder the position we are in. The limit that the local authority is given is five years, during which time it shall submit its application with all the particulars required. If you reduce that to a period too short for them to make a proper job of it you will very often get applications for too much land, because they have not had time to work out how the roads and everything else should go, and you will get in some cases an ill-digested application which will not result in a proper plan owing to land having been taken and people dispossessed and then being given back by the local authority, whereas if they have adequate time you will achieve something of great interest to private as well as public enterprise, that is to say a certain amount of precision in planning.

Sir H. Williams: If some local authority goes on till four years after the appointed day when not one brick has been laid on another, there will be a riot in the town.

Mr. Morrison: I am coming to that aspect of it very soon. I ask hon. Members, in the interests of enterprise and business security, not to barter precision for time. Let us have a definite plan which will be coherent and will really serve the interests of the community. The central difficulty which has confronted hon. Members during this discussion is this period of five years, which covers every local authority that is affected by the Clause. If you think of the varying problems of those local authorities you can see at once that, whereas two years might be in some cases a not unreasonably short period, there are other cases in which it will be hard work to get the job done in five years. Think of London, whose war damage may not yet be over and which has suffered so severely. I cannot conceive of the task being accomplished in two years or anything like it. If you imposed such an arbitrary limit you would render the whole procedure largely nugatory.

Commander Agnew: Has not London very great resources both in personnel and money, with many local authorities to assist in the work?

Mr. Morrison: London, with its constituent local authorities, has, like all others, given generously of its staff. They are all suffering from lack of staff for this purpose. Men have gone into the Army and into Government service and I ask the Committee to reflect on that position. The irony of the situation is that between myself and my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment there is really no difference of opinion as to what is desirable. He said we all want this task to be completed in the shortest possible time. With that sentiment I am in entire agreement, and I do not believe there is a dissentient voice in the whole Committee. What we have to ask is "What is the shortest possible time?" That is the problem.

Dr. Russell Thomas: Is it not a fact that most authorities have had plans for construction as long as two years ago? My own constituency produced an elaborate brochure two years ago, and they are only too anxious to put it into effect now.

Mr. Morrison: A brochure is a very different thing from an application in accordance with this Clause. I grant at once that many authorities have made a great deal of progress with the preliminary work, but to limit them all to two years would be to impose too short a period upon them.
There is a general fear in the minds of hon. Members, and I appreciate it, that a long period like this would perhaps put the owner of property in an unfair position of prolonged uncertainty. We have, however, taken in the Bill special steps to secure that no unfair uncertainty is allowed to prevail so far as we can secure it. It will be seen that under Clause 27 the owner of a war-damaged property who wishes to repair it or reconstruct it applies to his local planning authority for an interim development permission, and if that is refused, because it does not conform to the ideas of the local authority as to how the place should be developed, and if they have no alternative development of a similar kind to which they can direct his energies, they are forced to purchase it.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Is there any safeguard for the owner of land which is adjacent or contiguous to war-damaged land?

Mr. Morrison: Is my hon. Friend referring to the owner of beneficially occupied property?

Mr. Manninghain-Buller: I am referring to land which is described in Clause 1—
land shown to his satisfaction to have sustained war damage or of such land together with other land adjacent thereto.
I take it that the "other land" is land which has not sustained war damage, and I would like to ask the Minister if there is any safeguard for the owner of land which is not damaged by war but which is adjacent to an area of war damage. Is there any safeguard against his land being made subject to an order under Clause 1 at the end of five years?

Mr. Morrison: As regards the owner of war-damaged property, the operation of Clause 27 is quite general. What I said was that Clause applies to the owner of war-damaged property in any area comprised in the Clause. As regards the owner of property which is beneficially occupied, that is to say, a house, shop or factory where a man is actually living or working, if my hon. Friend will turn to Clause 2, Sub-section (4), he will see a general provision which limits the power to purchase under a Clause 1 order or in any other way, for the period I have mentioned. What I think is the general view of the Committee is that nobody wants the five-year period to act as a dilatory influence upon local authorities in forming their plans and submitting their applications. On the other hand, we do not want to have such a period as would render the greater tasks of reconstruction nugatory. Therefore, I could not possibly accept two years as a dead limit for the whole country. I am certain that it would result in the larger problems of reconstruction under this Clause 1 procedure not being dealt with effectively.
4.15 P.m.
The case has been put to me of the dilatory authorities who will not do anything until the end of the five years. Let the Committee remember that the interests of a local authority in a reconstruction area are to get building going as soon as possible. Great revenue depends upon it if nothing else, and the pressure of public opinion on members of the authority will be such that I think the danger is of small proportions. I do not, however, intend to ignore it. I will re-examine the matter


between now and the Report stage on the understanding that the five-year period must remain open to the authorities who have this task to do. I will see whether there is any way in which I can take powers to secure that there is no dilatoriness in the actions of local authorities, and that where the problems that they have to encounter in reconstruction are relatively simple and there is evidence that they are not getting on with it, whether there should be power to shorten the period. My undertaking to reexamine the problem rests on these two assumptions—first, that I cannot accept that two years is enough for the greater tasks of reconstruction properly formulated, and second, that I will see if there are steps that I can take to make sure there is no waste of time consistent with good planning.

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: May I ask my right hon. Friend also to consider the difference between town and country and to look at this problem from the point of view of the countryside? I appreciate that in the towns it may take about five years to make plans and to get them under way, but it need not take so long in the country. We have lost a great many farms and dairies, as a result of which agricultural production has gone down; and unless the Minister accepts some of the later Amendments and excludes agriculture from these provisions, the necessary development in the countryside will be held up. The Minister should consider the difference between the time needed in the town and the time needed in the country for the drawing up of plans. A great many counties, including my own, have town planning schemes which were passed under the Act of 1935. How will those schemes be affected by this Bill, and how will the Bill affect the security which we have enjoyed under such schemes? If there is a standstill order, will that hold good? Will this Bill enable the planning authority to upset the town planning schemes already in existence and stop any further building development until the five-year period has expired?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: On the first Question which my hon. Friend asks me I will undertake to consider the point which he makes. I think the second one is somewhat outside the scope of the present Amendment, but I will bear it in mind.

Sir Irving Albery.: The Minister made a proposal which certainly shows that he is sympathetic, but I cannot help feeling that it would be more satisfactory if he considered the possibility of shortening the period and then taking power, in exceptional cases, to give a longer period.

Mr. Bowles: I think I speak on behalf of my hon. Friends on this side of the House in saying that we think five years is too short a period. I hope that the Government will resist the pressure that has been brought by older Members of the Conservative Party who seem to be in such a hurry. The hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb) reminded the House of the length of time he had been a member of the L.C.C. We all remember that, and we all remember also that it took the Conservatives on the L.C.C. 10 years before they produced any plan for the rebuilding of Waterloo Bridge.
The figure now proposed is a maximum. It does not mean that plans have to be pushed into the Ministry on the last clay of the five years. If the Committee will consider that point for a moment they will see that if the Minister is reducing the period to two years, there is obviously a risk that he will be overloaded with work. Plans are much more likely to come in in the last few weeks of a two-year period. There is no reason why local authorities, especially those who have already got on well with their planning, should not send the plans to the Ministry as soon after the appointed day as they can. That will show whether the planning has gone so far as to justify the Members of the Committee who are pressing for a two-year period. I am sorry that we cannot have a longer period, but I ask the Minister for goodness' sake to let it stay at least as long as five years.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I should like to thank the Minister for giving real consideration to the Amendment. Unkind remarks have been passed by hon. Members but they have been withdrawn. I should like my right hon. Friend to appreciate that there is a deep and real support behind us which really wishes to see this matter carried into effect. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give it his attention. I gather that he will produce on the Report stage some procedure or


provision to bring this about. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh no!"]Some shortening of this period, where it would otherwise be unreasonable—[HON. MEMBERS: "He did not promise."]If that is so, may I have my right hon. Friend's assurance on this matter? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

Mr. Morrison: I think I have already given my assurance. I told the Committee what I proposed to do, and to the terms as I then expressed the matter I adhere.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: That being so, I accept my right hon. Friend's assurance, of course, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 1, line 20, to leave out "the commencement of this Act," and to insert:
such date as the Minister may by order appoint as being the date when the making of such applications has become practicable.
This Amendment is consequential upon the words inserted earlier in the Clause. Its purpose is to make the period of the powers run from an appointed day instead of from the passing of the Act. I reminded the Committee that we are legislating for a period of peace in a period of war of the end of which we cannot see definitely the date. It is better to make the powers run from an appointed day because we are sure that they can then be operated. I do not think there has been any comment on the earlier words which I moved and I hope therefore that the Committee can accept these words.

Mr. Craik Henderson: We ought to have a little more information from the Minister about what he means by this appointed day. What criteria are to be taken of what is to be the appointed day in each case?

The Attorney-General: It is an appointed day for the whole Measure and not for each application.

Mr. Craik Henderson: We ought to have some indication when the appointed day is to be. Can the Minister give us some indication as to how he will arrive at it? Is it to be two years after the war or

is it to approximate to the passing of the Bill? This provision might extend considerably the five years period under the Bill.

Mr. Henry Strauss: It is certainly intended that the appointed day shall be as soon as possible. Relevant considerations will be when we have reason to think that war damage has come to an end and that further war damage will not be suffered, and when there is some reasonable chance of local authorities getting on with the work they have to do under Clause 1. It is not intended that it should be long after the cessation of the war with Germany; on the contrary, it will be as soon as the authorities can get on with their work.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am not. sure that we have really had a very strong case made out for the alteration of what is in the Bill. Whatever may be the appointed day, it will obviously add something, probably a considerable period, to the five years which we have been discussing. I would like to know why the change has been made from what was originally in the Bill. It may be all right and convenient to the planning authorities, but for those affected by the planning it may increase the period of uncertainty by the indefinite addition to the five years. The Minister was very accommodating with regard to the last Amendment, and I would ask him to consider whether, between now and the Report stage, the Amendment might not be recast, together with the other, so that the period within which each application should be made should be specified in the Bill, and that he should retain power to extend that period in particular cases, if the grounds for so doing exist.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Bowles: The hon. Member is so worried about the uncertainty of certain people who will be affected. Supposing we put down an Amendment in the next two days to freeze the value of land from now for the next 20 years, will he accept that as removing the uncertainty?

Mr. Manningham-Buller: That is purely hypothetical. If the hon, Member had heard the earlier part of the Debate he would have understood the reason for my statement.

Captain Prescott: I am not at all happy in my mind that this Amendment should be allowed through quite so quickly or easily. As I understand it it must presuppose one thing, that at the date when this Bill becomes law it will not then be practicable for any local authority to get an Order through the Minister under Clause 1, Sub-section (1). We all want these schemes for reconstruction and compulsory acquisition of land in blitzed areas to be effective at the earliest possible moment. If this Amendment is allowed to go, through no local authority, Plymouth, Southampton, or anywhere else, will be able to submit a scheme to the Minister for the compulsory acquisition of land unless and until he says they can do so. Surely, the time has now come when we can say with reasonable certainty that there are areas in this country which have suffered extensive damage and which it is fairly reasonable to suppose will not suffer any more damage or very little more, in the war. Why should these authorities here and now not make application under Clause 1, Sub-section (1) for power to acquire the land right away? If we give the Minister this power we are giving him power to defer indefinitely the date of the coming into operation of this Measure so far as Clause 1 is concerned. I do not base my objection to this Amendment on the ground my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) put forward. It may well be that it will, in effect, extend considerably the period of five years but that is not necessarily the ground upon which I object to the Amendment. My objection is that it is giving the Minister carte blanche to estop local authorities from acquiring land compulsorily in the blitzed areas. It may be that I have misunderstood the effect of the Amendment, but as I see it if it goes through no local authority can put into effect a scheme to buy land until the Minister gives permission. I think we should have a clear statement from the Minister as to why he wishes that.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: As the Clause now stands, the application on their behalf is made to the Minister by the authorities before the expiration of a given date. The date is now five years but if the Amendment is carried it will be five years after such date as the Ministry may appoint. An application which is made immediately upon the morrow of this

Measure receiving the Royal Assent will be an application made to the Minister by the authority "before the expiration of" and it seems to me quite obvious and clear that there is no such danger as the hon. and gallant Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott) has-envisaged. I hope that the Committee will accept that reading of the Clause without even burdening the right hon. and learned Attorney-General for an explanation.

Captain Duncan: I should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) in his suggestion that this part of the Clause should be recast. If this Amendment is carried it is quite obvious there will be additional delay if the Minister is going to declare an appointed day after the date on which this Measure becomes an Act. The Minister is insisting upon five years as a maximum but I would like him to consider a suggestion that the maximum might be reduced, in view of this Amendment, but that the Minister should be given power to extend the period in cases such as that of London, where there may be particular difficulty. Personally, from my knowledge of my own borough, I do not think there will be any difficulty whatever in producing a scheme within two years, but there may be other cases.

Mr. Silkin: Is the hon. and gallant Member's borough a planning authority?

Captain Duncan: The hon. Member realises that the L.C.C. will have to cooperate with the boroughs. I hope they will. If not there will be trouble.

Mr. Silkin: I asked the hon. and gallant Member whether his borough is a planning authority.

Captain Duncan: I agree that the borough council is not a planning authority, but under the County plan the borough councils must be consulted. If they are not there will be trouble, I will say no more than that. I hope my right hon. Friend will consider the suggestion I have made, and the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry.

Sir J. Lamb: As I understand it the proposal would. extend the five years' period to a maximum by whatever period elapsed between the passing of the Act and the date selected by the Minister, but


that would in no way limit the time—that people could send in schemes when they were made.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I think my hon. Friend who has just spoken has stated the matter correctly. I hope the Committee will not, on this minor Amendment, renew the main discussion. The question of whether five years is or is not the right period is a point of substance of which we have disposed. The minor question is when the period should begin. It is hoped there will be only a small interval between the passing of the Act and the appointed day. I should like to confirm what has been said. In the opinion of those far better qualified than I to construe the Clause there is, as a matter of construction, nothing to prevent an application being sent in before the appointed day.

Amendment agreed to.

Commander Bower: I beg to move, in page 1, line 20, at the end, to insert:
Provided that no such application shall be made unless the authority shall not less than two months before the making of the same have published by local advertisement a notice in the prescribed form announcing their intention to make the application and describing the land to which such application is to relate.
I think this Amendment explains itself. It is proposed entirely with the object of enabling the local inhabitants and every interested person, of whom there may be very many categories, to have adequate notice of the areas which a local authority designates for redevelopment and compulsory purchase. We have heard a lot about the Minister and the authorities, and a lot about planning, but not so much about the human problem, of the people who are to be dispossessed and who have already suffered from being blitzed and burned out. It is only reasonable they should be given as much notice as possible of the intentions of the local authority. All of us who have had experience of local authorities know well that people take a great interest in what the people up at the town hall are doing. I am certain that in this case they will take an even more fervent interest than usual. This seems to me a reasonable Amendment, which might appeal even to the Gadarene fringe of our own party.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I wanted to hear what the rest of the Committee had to say

about this Amendment. The proposition of my hon. and gallant Friend, in the terms of his Amendment, appears to be confined merely to the publishing of a local advertisement announcing the local authority's intention to make an application, describing the land, and so on. I wanted to hear the argument for it. I suppose, that it will be said that the sooner the intentions are known, the sooner the uncertainty will end. The only objection is that this seems to hold out the temptation to local authorities not to start consultations with the interests involved until two months before. In my view, they should be going on now.

Commander Bower: I said, in my short speech, which I cut short with the object of saving the time of the Committee, that I was thinking not only of the Minister and the planning authority but the people concerned, who have suffered so much.

Mr. Morrison: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will let me look at the Amendment from the drafting point of view. In principle I accept his Amendment.

Mr. Silkin: Does the right hon. Gentleman really mean that? If he will look at his own Clause, which possibly he has forgotten, he will see that it provides that, when the local authority have submitted the application, there is provision, if he is satisfied that the application is in order, for the scheme to be published. Surely that is the right time for the public to be informed. It is no good notifying the public in advance of a scheme which my right hon. Friend may say is quite inappropriate, and about which he wants more particulars. As soon as he has agreed with the scheme, the particulars appear automatically, and the public are informed. In my submission, for one notice to appear before the application is submitted and for another to appear after the application is approved will be redundant, and will obstruct the scheme. I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I do not think that there is much in this Amendment. It merely asks the authority to put an advertisement in the local newspaper, saying that it intends to make an application. My hon. and gallant Friend would not expect them to have to go into great detail, or do anything burdensome.

4.45 P.m.

Mr. Silkin: It compels the advertisement of an application which my right hon. Friend may regard as quite unsuitable. It will merely confuse the public. First, two months' notice has to be given of an application which is going to be made, and then my right hon. Friend may modify the application, after which there must be another advertisement. Surely one advertisement is enough, either before the application or after it. If this Amendment is accepted in principle, it will confuse the public, by causing the same thing to be advertised twice.

Earl Winterton: I view with the greatest suspicion the speech of the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin). We are indeed getting on in the process of adopting the terminology of public ownership. It appears that any private individual who wishes to put forward views as to why an application should not be accepted is obstructing the scheme. Let me give some advice to my right hon. Friend. When he accepts an Amendment from one of his supporters, I hope he will not haver if somebody else opposes it.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I did not haver.

Earl Winterton: I thought that my right hon. Friend said that he had accepted it.

Mr. Morrison: I have known my Noble Friend in Parliament for some years, and I do not take offence at what he says. But what I said was that I accepted the principle of the Amendment, and I asked my hon. and gallant Friend to let me look at the drafting before finally accepting it.

Earl Winterton: If I did any injustice to my right hon. Friend I am sorry. I thought that in his second speech he was too conciliatory. It is all very well to be conciliatory, but it can be overdone. I thought that he was giving way. Surely we have not reached the point that people affected, whether as ratepayers or as owners of land, should not be informed of a scheme. What is the objection? Is it that members of the London County Council and others do not want the public to know what they are doing? I think it is as well that these facts should be put rather strongly. This is a reasonable Amendment, which is accepted by

the Minister; and no sooner is it accepted than representatives of public ownership get up and say, "This is an awful thing; you are actually going to tell the public in advance what you are going to do."

Mr. A. Bevan: My Noble Friend has forgotten the argument that we have been having. We have just had the argument, advanced exclusively by Members on the other side, that it was very desirable to get these schemes in operation speedily, and that, therefore, the period of five years should be made less, to encourage the local authorities to get on with the job. [Interruption.] My Noble Friend did not hear that argument, but I am quite certain that if he had it would not have interfered with what he has just said. He has said that the local authority should first make certain tentative proposals—because there cannot be a fully-fledged scheme at that stage. There is a fully-fledged scheme for submission to the interests concerned only after the Minister has declared his position. My Noble Friend says that, after having drafted a tentative scheme, the local authority should then invite as much opposition as can be secured.

Viscountess Astor: Hear, Hear. That is what would happen.

Earl Winterton: I must interrupt my hon. Friend the Member far Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). He is a most fair protagonist, and we occasionally find ourselves on the same side. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman and to his Socialist supporter, the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), that I said that the local authority had, in my opinion, an obligation to notify the ratepayers of their intentions in the fullest possible manner.

Mr. A. Bevan: I was a member of a local authority for 20 years. [Interruption.] Will these two wings of the Conservative Party adjust their differences so that we may discuss this thing? I will not be drawn into those matters. May I suggest quite seriously that the Amendment, if accepted, is going to impose a very limited period for the preparation of these schemes. In the first place, the local authority will, normally, be conducting its business in public, and the local Press will normally be carrying to the local ratepayers information about those discussions. It is the duty of ratepayers, as


citizens, to take an interest in what the authority is discussing in their neighbourhood. In addition to that, after the local authority has had this preliminary discussion, its scheme is drawn up. What is the suggestion? Before application can be made to the Minister, notification must appear in the local Press so as to add another stage in the defence of private vested interests against the proposals of the local authorities.
I know it is no business of mine, but what the noble Lord is inviting us to say is that, if you have got schemes in places like Plymouth and London and Swansea, where the local authority is going to be subjected to other interests, convening meetings to prevent schemes for houses—if that is the sort of thing we are to have, you are going to have trouble and very serious trouble at that. The time has come for us to say to hon. Members opposite that the country is beginning to realise the extent of the sympathy of these property-owner vultures with the public. They have already got a second stage after the scheme has been accepted by the Minister. There are stages where individual interests can make their objections now. There are inquiries to be held, but, before that, my Noble Friend and his friends want every single party to have their chance of working against the local authority.
I speak with experience, I was for 20 years on a local authority. We used to be under an obligation to hold a town's meeting to promote a Bill, and we had to placard the town and put advertisements in the local newspapers. A great deal of that still remains, so as to provide that every single individual interest shall have an opportunity of making its objections. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, No."]I have no objection at all to it being made known to them that their interests are going to be affected, but that will be made known in the procedure under the Bill. There is no need to interpose this stage at the very beginning, the only purpose of which is to excite every vested local interest against the plan. We know the lobbying that goes on, because local councillors do not live in a vacuum. They are subject to all kinds of pressure, and it is intolerable—and, quite frankly, the Committee should realise this—that the actual technical difficulties of a scheme being prepared

in the first instance might be prejudiced by lobbying pressure brought to bear upon them by vested interests.
That is exactly what occurs. We know that all over this country Tory estate agents cramp local authorities in these matters, and evidence of it can be found in every local authority in Great Britain. Do you think we do not know what happens, and do not know of the real estate vultures who got themselves elected, and have got themselves elected in the last few months, in order to exploit the situation? If it is necessary for us to do so, we will show details and particulars of where local estate agents have already got themselves elected to local authorities in order to prejudice these schemes, and, invariably, they are Tories. I suggest to the Minister that, in yielding to this demand, he is puting an obstructionist stage in the development of local authorities' schemes and giving another chance for people to obstruct national development.

Viscountess Astor: We can see the good old Tory Party divided once more. I have never been ashamed of being a social reformer, and I am not one day on the extreme Left and the next day on the extreme Right. I agree with nearly everything which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) said, except when he talks about the Tory estate agents being the only people to obstruct, which is ridiculous. What he said is true, and it is happening in town planning areas already. This is a Bill to deal with blitzed areas, and I can assure the Committee that these blitzed areas will never get replanned or reconstructed if you give time for objections to be made by certain vested interests, which does not mean landowners alone, but, more often, speculators or people who do not want replanning at all. It is hard enough to ask us to get our plans drawn up; it is a very dangerous thing to add this.
I would like to remind the Committee that these people living in the blitzed areas have one idea in their minds—to get the area replanned and rebuilt as quickly as they can and that no vested interest, whether of the Right or the Left, is going to stand in the way. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) talked about revolution and reaction. He ought to come to Plymouth and talk about it there. I hope the Minister will say that people who have got


plans will not have to notify everybody and get them to meet together in their small interests. It is an impossible thing; an advertisement is exactly the same thing. Every town planner in this country knows what happens. There are vested interests in all communities, but this country will want to see these blitzed areas rebuilt as quickly as possible and rebuilt on a new plan. I commend the Plymouth Plan to hon. Members of the Committee, but, already, we have got people in our community who want to pull it down, though they dare not come out in the open and say what they are going to do.

Dr. Russell Thomas: As the proceedings are going on very late, is the Noble Lady in Order in going into these points?

The Deputy-Chairman: I have not noticed anything wrong. Of course, we all ought to show consideration for fellow Members.

Viscountess Astor: I was talking about the difficulties we have in this replanning. If people are against replanning, why do not they come out and say so? But they do not do it. Bring in a plan—

Earl Winterton: The Noble Lady makes these charges, but the sole purpose of this Amendment is to give two months' notice of certain intentions. In what possible way is that giving an advantage to vested interests? What on earth does she mean?

5.0 p.m.

Viscountess Astor: You have to let the whole of the people know what is going to happen. You get them all coming together and small vested interests begin to show. It happens everywhere. [Interruption.] All hon. Members know it.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: rose—

Viscountess Astor: The hon. and gallant Member knows it perfectly well.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I can assure the Noble Lady that is untrue. She comes to this Committee and makes violent statements all over the place and then walks out again. She really should be more careful what she says.

Viscountess Astor: I am used to reforms in the Tory Party.

The Deputy-Chairman: This is a very simple Amendment and we really must

not go into the history of the Conservative or any other party. We should try to avoid personalities.

Mr. A. Bevan: On a point of procedure. The Minister has said that he is not prepared to accept the Amendment in its present form but he wants to consider incorporating the Amendment at a later stage in different words. What do the mover and supporters of the Amendment propose to do?

Commander Bower: I have been waiting for some 20 minutes and, in view of the fact that the Minister has accepted the Amendment in principle and I presume will take steps to embody it at a later stage, I beg to ask leave to with-dram the Amendment.

Viscountess Aastor: I beg the Minister, in the name of the blitzed areas, not to accept the Amendment, because we know how difficult it will be to get our plans through.

Mr. Woodburn: I would like to put this to the Minister, though not in any heated fashion. This is, on the face of it, a very simple proposition. There are a number of simple propositions in other Amendments and if many simple propositions are introduced the cumulative effect of this might be to make the Bill unworkable. If every simple Amendment is accepted then before we get to the end of the Bill, there will be so many obstructive points that he will not get the work done. Therefore I would like to recall some of the statements of the mover and supporters of the Amendment that they are definitely against planning. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who said that?"]They have said that in earlier Amendments to-day to those who were present. They have introduced some Amendments with the object of restricting the planning to the smallest possible area and helping to make the Measure unworkable. I ask the Minister not to accept the Amendment.

Sir J. Lamb: As one who has his name down to the Amendment, I deny the statement made by the hon. Member for East Stirling (Mr. Woodburn). That is not my intention. I am not against planning and I absolutely deny the imputation made against me. I put my name down to the Amendment with the


intention, as I believe, of protecting the rights of the individual. I am surprised to hear some of the statements with regard to the rights of everybody else but the individual. Individuals still have rights.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: All I accepted, which seemed to be quite reasonable, was that the local planning authority should publish in a newspaper in simple terms a notice to make the application clear.

Mr. A. Bevan: We do not know at all what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He said he accepts the principle of the Amendment but will consider the words later on. We are resisting the Amendment because we do not really know his intention. If he accepts the principle of the Amendment, the local authorities will have to describe in the local newspaper the parcels of land supposed to be taken, and one might well have the whole newspaper filled.

Mr. Morrison: When I accepted it I was careful to exclude such a possibility. I am certain that my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment does not mean that the Amendment should carry with it onerous or multifarious particulars so as to make it difficult. I have safeguarded that.

Mr. Bowles: Will not an ordinary report in the local Press be sufficient? What is the notice to be about?

Sir J. Lamb: My right hon. and learned Friend said he would like to reconsider the wording and I thought that he had accepted the principle that there should be a statement describing the land to which such application relates, because that is what I really want. [Interruption.]. Yes I do, and I am not ashamed of saying so. The owner has rights as an individual and should have some opportunity of knowing whether his rights are to be infringed or not. That is the principle here. I have been a member of a local authority and I am vice-chairman of one now, and I do not see why a local authority should object to it being known if they propose to take action of any description against individual rights. It is on those grounds that I put my name to the Amendment. The individual has the same right to have his rights protected as a community of individuals.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: Without going into the question of the intention of those who moved the Amendment or those who are opposing the Minister accepting it in spirit, it is right to reflect upon one thing. The effect of this Amendment is bound to be to cause delay in getting plans into operation. Take the case of those authorities which have plans now ready. Those plans have been well publicised. Do hon. Members think that the people of Plymouth do not know what Plymouth intends to plan, or indeed the people of Swansea and various other authorities up and down the country? The plans have not only been publicised in the town itself but they have been published all over the Kingdom. There has. been ample publicity and discussion in those cases and the only result of this Amendment, if accepted, would be delay. If the Minister accepts the spirit of the Amendment, I do not see how he can come back to the House at a later stage without something which would carry delay, and his readiness to accept that is to me incomprehensible.
I have read further Amendments on the Order Paper, to be moved in due course by the Minister, all designed to meet the requests of local authorities, of planning bodies throughout the Kingdom. that the procedure in the Bill, as it now stands unamended, should be speeded up, and he will concede, when he moves those Amendments and the Committee accept them, a more expeditious procedure. Yet, on the first day of the Committee stage, we find the Minister accepting a delaying Amendment. The question of delay will not apply to those authorities who are ready already with their plans but it will operate in general as a form of delay.
What is the form of notice which the Minister suggests? If it is a purely general description, showing that the local authority proposes to replan, say, the bombed parts of Coventry, with convenient pieces adjacent or contiguous thereto, with a nice little picture, that would be giving notice that planning is going on, but it would not achieve the object of those who supported this Amendment, which is to give an opportunity to individual property owners to start obstruction at that early stage. If it does not do that, then it must be a particularised one. Of two things, one: It is either in general terms—n which case there is no information of a particular


character to anybody: or it is particularised. Now imagine the L.C.C. complying with a request to describe meticulously the boundaries of the schemes it has in mind, so described as to enable the property owners concerned to see how they are affected, as the supporters of this Amendment have said. You would find that a week's issue of "The Times" would not be enough. I do ask the Minister to reconsider it. It is either useless, and therefore achieves nothing at all except slight delay, or it provides a cumbersome additional step which every authority will have to face. Take it another stage. Whatever form the Minister designates for this purpose means that the local authority has not only to get ready to put out a plan or a description for the purpose, later on, of submission to the Minister, but it also has to use its staff to provide this other form of publication of its plans. It is bound to cause them additional work and delay. Therefore, I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to say that he does not accept anything in this Amendment which involves a second's delay in the procedure.

Sir J. Lamb: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman suppose that any planning authority will send forward a scheme not knowing themselves what area is covered by this scheme? If they know what area is covered, I think it is very easy for them to publish that knowledge.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Hughes: I do not suppose the hon. Gentleman appreciates what he is asking for, When the local authority submits its plan to the Minister it must be specifically delineated and described. Is he now asking that that plan should be published two months before this is sent to the Minister? That would mean the publication of the whole document. I wonder if the hon. Member has ever seen one of them? If so, he must understand perfectly well that such a thing is not possible. To advertise particulars of the same nature as those which the Minister has to approve is impossible.

Mr. Critchley: Is it not a fact that with all local authorities such schemes as those proposed now are laid in the office of the Town Clerk and are available for inspection?

Mr. Hughes: That is all right.

Mr. Critchley: That is all that need be published. It is all right as long as it is available to everybody.

Mr. Hughes: There is nothing in the objection which I am raising that interferes in the slightest degree with the excellent practice followed by all proper planning authorities in publishing their proposals at the earliest possible moment in the manner suggested by my hon. Friend, but it is an entirely different thing to ask that that shall be reproduced in the local Press.

Mr. Critchley: On a point of Order, Mr. Williams—

The Deputy Chairman: The hon. Member has asked a question, but it is hardly in order for the hon. Member to do so unless the hon. and learned Member who is speaking, gives way to him.

Mr. Hughes: The crux of the matter is contained in the last phrase: "describing the land to which such application is to relate." It is not describing in general terms to the people of the district what kind of town you are going to give them, not the type of brochure to which the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas) referred, which will interest the townspeople and the ratepayers and make them enthusiastic for a new type of town, not a thing of public interest. No, it is "describing the land to which such application is to relate"—in other words, giving an opportunity to every property owner who wants to obstruct and cause difficulty to do so at the earliest possible moment. That is the substance of the Amendment.

Earl Winterton: I think we have now narrowed down the argument to this, that while this information will be available in the Town Hall where everybody can see it, because the hon. and learned Gentleman objects to private ownership, the private owner and the public shall not be informed although the information is available. Is not that the point?

Mr. Hughes: The public is already informed and, in that case, why does the noble Lord want this additional bit of information? It is because he knows perfectly well that it is not good enough just to have the plan at the Town Hall—you have to whip people up through the Press in order to collect the biggest possible number of objectors to the scheme that


you can. Therefore I say that this is a blocking Amendment designed to prevent planning, and to put obstacles in its way. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will not accept even the spirit of it, and nothing which will act in the least as an obstacle.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: I did not intend to intervene on this Amendment, and I hope that what I say will be so dull that the temperature of the Committee will drop considerably when I have said it. I do not associate myself with any of the charges which have been thrown across the Floor, because I believe that both sides are sincerely anxious to do justice and see that no wrong-doing will result, either to those who want to be accommodated as a result of replanning or to those who have to be dispossessed. I must confess that starting, as I did, from all the presuppositions of my hon. Friends on this side I was, none the less, a little surprised that the Minister should. have gone so far as he did to accept this Amendment. May I explain why? It is rather dull and technical. I have not sat for many years on a local authority, although I have had a little to do with the public acquisition of land in another capacity. The first thing to understand is that this Bill starts with the intention of trying to acquire land in war damaged areas rather more quickly than the existing procedure does, but still on the basis of the existing procedure. This procedure has been in existence since 1845 and it has never been found yet—I say this without fear of contradiction—that under it a preliminary notice, before a town council meets to pass its originating resolution, has been required in order to give owners ample notice. I want to see owners have just as ample notice as anybody, but it is still true that since 1845 this particular notice has never proved necessary, and it is a little hard in a Bill which is designed to accelerate procedure, to introduce this additional step, which may be gilding the lily but has not been found necessary in a period of 99 years. There needs to be a stronger case for the Amendment than seems to have been put forward on purely Conservative grounds.
The second thing is this: Let us look at it from a practical point of view. In order to make its application to the Minister the local authority has to pass a

resolution in order that the application should be made. According to this Amendment, before it passes its resolution it has to put a notice in the "London Gazette" and in newspapers, describing in broad and general terms the area of land to be covered. Supposing the local authority wants to debate the resolution, which it is well entitled to do, supposing some members of the local authority want to alter the area of land to be covered by the proposed application, that means that the authority has to start all over again, if the Amendment is carried, with its notice. Supposing it wants to have another debate two months later in order to make another application to the Minister, it is quite possible that there might be further delay. I suggest that for that reason, leaving aside altogether the heat which this matter has engendered—many hard things have been said—there is sound reason for regarding this Amendment as not only unnecessary but as also containing the seeds of danger and delay. I want to add that in the ordinary course of events the proceedings of a local authority are published, and the agenda is published, in the local Press. It is the business of the owner of property—and I am not one—to take sufficient interest in the management of his affairs to discover from the published agenda of his local authority whether there is something which affects his interest. If any prudent property owner did not take that precaution—

Mr. Critchley: The reports of the proceedings of a council are very much abridged. There is much detailed matter which does not appear in the newspapers.

Mr. Bevan: The resolution to which my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg): has referred would have to be carried in a statutory meeting of the council, properly advertised beforehand, and, therefore, made available to everybody.

Mr. Hogg: I appreciate what my hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Critchley) bas said, but I introduced this point only after having pointed out that there is a danger in this matter of urgency of additional delay. It has to be considered that this takes place at a public meeting of a public body, which has previously advertised its agenda.

Sir J. Lamb: The agenda is not always previously advertised.

Mr. Hogg: I think I am right in saying that the agenda of a local authority is generally fairly well known beforehand. I, certainly, without any particular interest in the matter, know fairly well what is coming before the Oxford City Council, without having either business there or any property which I own. But even if that were not so I would ask my hon. Friends to consider whether this really arouses great principles of Conservatism when they reflect that the whole procedure has gone on for over 90 years in matters which are not urgent.

Earl Winterton: My hon. Friend is rather convincing me, but I would like to put this point. What relevance is there between what happened nearly 100 years ago, when operations on this scale were never contemplated, and the present time? Surely he would agree—and. I say this with great diffidence in view of his special knowledge—that if a small shop-owner wanted to know what was going to happen he would be much more likely to take an interest in the matter if there was to be a published statement in the newspapers, than if he had to listen to what was taking place in the council chamber?

Mr. Hogg: I do not want to take up the time of the Committee too much, but my Noble Friend has put forward two legitimate points. It is not, however, a question of what took place 100 years ago. I would not be prepared to accept what my Noble Friend said about things being wholly different then, because the whole of the railway development was taking place. The Lands Clauses Consolidation Act is far from being the obsolete Measure which some people think. The public acquisition of land is not something which took place 100 years ago; it has been taking place continuously, on the largest possible scale, for many years. The compulsory acquisition of land is familiar to us all. I say that this additional notice has not proved necessary for nearly 100 years of experience which is really comparable. We are asking for an abridged procedure to meet an urgent need in particular cases and to ask the Committee to insert something which would be, at best, an addition to the normal procedure is a little unreason-

able. I do not, for a moment, suggest that hon. Members are doing it in order to cause delay—I am sure they are not—but I think they are, being a little unreasonable in insisting upon it.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Silverman: If there ever was any case for this Amendment I think most Members of the Committee will agree that it has been utterly demolished by the last two speeches. I am not going to be guilty of the impertinence of seeking to add any further argument to a case that has been established in the minds of all reasonable persons. What I get up for is to ask the Minister what he now proposes to do. The Debate has been rendered necessary almost entirely because at an earlier stage he indicated that he was prepared to accept the principle of the Amendment. He was not prepared to accept it in its present form, but it is clear that what he intended was that the Amendment should be withdrawn and that he would at a subsequent stage move an Amendment in different words designed to implement the same object. I am certain that, if he was ever sympathetic to the Amendment at all, the grounds of his sympathy must have been struck from under him by the speech of the hon. Member behind him and the Committee, I am sure, would now like to hear what his present intention is.
We should like to know whether he still believes that the principle of the Amendment is right. We should like to know whether he still intends at a later stage, if the Amendment is withdrawn or defeated, to introduce a new Amendment implementing exactly the same principle. If he does, I think that would cast, in the minds of most of us, a most prejudicial atmosphere over the Government's attitude to the whole Measure. It is clear now, whether it was the intention or not of those who moved it and supported it, that if the Amendment were carried it would only have an obstructive at the best and, at the worst, a highly mischievous effect. If the Minister is still inclined to introduce a principle of this kind many of us will have to reconsider our attitude to the Measure as a whole. I ask the Minister now to let us know whether he accepts the view of the case as it appears after the last two speeches, and if he has been converted by them, as the Noble Lord has apparently been, to let us know it at an


early stage so that we can get rid of the Amendment and the principle of it and get on with the Bill.

Commander Bower: The only reason why there have not been speeches in support of the Amendment is that a long time ago the Minister accepted the principle.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett (Bridgwater): I think it would help the Committee if this could be clarified. The Minister said he did not intend that this advertisement should go into great detail. Will he tell us a little more what sort of thing he has in mind? In what way would the advertisement that he has in mind go beyond the reports that appear in the local Press of the local authority's meeting?

Mr. Henry Strauss: May I try to explain what it is that the Minister is prepared to do, why he has accepted the principle, and what on the other hand he does not intend to bring about? The principle that he is accepting is that, when a local authority is going to make an application under Clause 1, it shall give by advertisement notice of that fact. The reason why he accepted the principle, but did not accept the Amendment, was precisely because he was anxious to secure that it should not be made a burdensome or cumbersome requirement on the local authority, but should help to secure what is already the practice of the best local authorities, namely, consulting all proper interests in advance, so that it comes in an informed way to make the application to the Minister. We do not wish by the amendment which we shall propose in due course to change in any way the good practice of the best authorities in this matter. I believe they have every intention of having proper consultations to make certain that their planning, as far as possible, has complied with the varied requirements of their community. Our only hesitation in accepting the Amendment in principle was lest the mention of any time limit might give the impression that the local authority should not consult anyone even earlier. I do not say now what description of the land proposed to be included in the application should be included in any such advertisement, but we certainly do not intend that any small failure, or any subsequent alteration in the details of the proposal, shall affect the validity of the application or

involve the dangers which were rightly pointed out in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford City (Mr. Hogg).
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) said that the attitude of the Government in giving some sympathetic consideration to the Amendment frightened him as to the attitude of the Government to the whole Bill. I am bound to say in reply to that that some of the speeches which have been made against the principle may well have caused alarm as to what may be in the mind of some hon. Members. It is not intended by the Amendment to give any new right of objection to anyone. The only thing that it is designed to do is to give some notice. Even if what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said were true, if some people might be tempted to obstruct at the earliest possible stage, is he quite convinced that it is worse to obstruct at an earlier stage than to obstruct later? Does it necessarily mean any greater delay? It does not follow at all. I thought there were many very contradictory arguments brought forward against the principle which my right hon. Friend has accepted. It is said on the one hand that everyone knows what is in the mind of their local representatives.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us who made that statement?

Mr. Strauss: I am afraid I have not got it on my notes.

Mr. A. Bevan: I think the hon. Gentleman got somewhat astray on this. It was tentatively suggested by more than one speaker that probably the citizens in most blitzed cities are aware that their council will be trying to rebuild their cities.

Mr. Strauss: I thought it was more definite, but perhaps I am mistaken. What I am anxious to do is to make clear what is and what is not being accepted. What is being accepted is the provision of reasonable notice. What is not being accepted is a new and onerous requirement which will hamper local authorities in getting on with their work.

Mr. Silverman: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether he is accepting the principle that before any application is made there shall be an advertisement of the intention to apply and of the land to


which the application is to relate? That seems to be the crux of the whole matter. Is there to be a prior advertisement of that before ever an application is made?

Mr. Strauss: That is precisely what is to be done. There is to be a notice by the local authority of its intention to apply for a Clause 1 Order. As to the description of the land, I am not prepared to answer that now, but obviously the notice must be in sufficient detail to be useful. On the other hand, it is important it should not have what the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) feared might be the effect, if it were carelessly worded or there were some subsequent Amendment, of causing further delay or invalidating the proceedings.

Mr. Silkin: Is it proposed to give notice that it is intended to make an application for an order and to give another notice that application has been made?

Mr. Woodburn: And is it also intended that two months must intervene?

Mr. Strauss: I thought I made it clear that my right hon. Friend has made no promise as to the details of the notice. In fairness to my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment, I should point out that he has never asked us to accept the details of it.

Mr. Silkin: The Clause already requires that notice should be given when the application has been made. Is there to be another notice that it is intended to make an application?

Mr. Strauss: I do not know if the hon. Member is speaking of the notice in the prescribed form mentioned later but all subsequent rights which are given, such as the right of objection, are not being done away with. Of course it is something additional, but it is not intended to be an onerous new step. It is intended to encourage all local authorities to do that which the best of them already do, that is, to have consultations in advance.

Mr. Bowles: Is this notice to be made early in the planning by the local authority, or when they have completed their plans, or is it to be made over and over again until the plans are about to be submitted to the Minister?

Mr. Strauss: It is obvious that the idea is that it should be a condition precedent

to their making an application for an Order that they should give notice of the application. If the hon. Member wants some details of matters dealt with later in the Clause we shall come to them later. I am now trying to deal with the Amendment, with what is meant by accepting it in principle, and with what my right hon. Friend is determined to secure, namely, that this shall not be an onerous new step causing delay in the whole proceedings.

5.45 P.m.

Mr. Silverman: It is important that we should understand what the Parliamentary Secretary means. I confess that I do not. He says that the purpose is to encourage local authorities to do what the best authorities do now, that is, to have consultations with people interested before they prepare their plans. I follow that very well, but I do not see how you are going to encourage people to consult interests before the plans are made by laying it down by statute that they shall give notice after the plans are made. What this Amendment asks for, and what the Minister has accepted, is that the local authority shall decide first to do something, that it shall decide what it wants to do, and, having decided what it wants to do and the application it wants to make, it shall then, before it applies to the Minister, advertise the fact some time in advance. That cannot be in order to consult the interests, because the plans will have already been made. If it is in order that they shall consult, it must prolong the procedure.

The Deputy-Chairman: May I suggest that it would be well to allow the Minister to finish? We have had a long discussion, and I would remind the Committee that this is a long Bill and that this is not a very big point.

Mr. Silverman: I wanted to get from the Minister whether he really intended that the local authority should give notice after its mind had been made up in order that it should begin once more to consider the whole thing by taking other people into consultation.

Mr. Strauss: That was a somewhat lengthy question and I doubt whether, if I have not explained it to the hon. Member already, anything further I might say would convey it to his mind. I have made it clear that my right hon. Friend has made no statement as to what the period


will be in the Amendment which he will propose. I think I have substantially dealt with the points that have been raised. My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment declared his willingness to withdraw it on the terms that my right hon. Friend has stated and which I have endeavoured to explain. If he is granted that leave, well and good. If hon. Members in any quarter refuse to allow the Amendment to be withdrawn, I suggest that we should be unanimous in rejecting it, on the undertaking of my right hon. Friend that he will bring forward an Amendment to provide for adequate notice of the intention to apply for a Clause 1 Order, and will take every step in his power to safeguard a local authority from the imposition of any onerous or delaying new step.

Mr. Bevan: That is one of the most original suggestions I have ever heard, and it pre-judges the Chair in a singular manner, because what the hon. Gentleman has now suggested with unprecedented impudence is that the whole Committee should reject an Amendment containing a principle so objectionable that everybody rejects it, and that later on the Chair should select an Amendment containing something similar, on which we should have another Debate. I suggest that the Minister too hurriedly accepted the principle and that it would have been better if he had permitted the Parliamentary Secretary, who was much clearer in his mind then than he has become since, to handle the Amendment in the first instance. Then, probably, it would have been rejected on very safe grounds, but the Minister having accepted the principle, the hon. Gentleman found it necessary to go on batting on what became a stickier and stickier wicket. I suggest that the Committee reject the Amendment and that no further steps are taken to reintroduce it.

Amendment negatived.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I beg to move, in page 1, line 20, at the end, to insert:
Provided that where in any case all the land in an area of extensive war damage is held by one owner and he is able and willing to develop or redevelop the land consistently with the proper planning of the area of the local planning authority nothing in this Act shall authorise the local planning authority to purchase the interest of the said owner compulsorily.

The Amendment illustrates the point that planning can be carried out without the acquisition of land, in certain circumstances. Where all the damage is on the land of one owner and he is willing and able to co-operate with the planning authority to develop or re-develop the land, consistent with the scheme of the planning local authority, the Amendment proposes that he should be given the opportunity to do so. I should like to draw attention to the policy of His Majesy's Government on the use of land in the White Paper which I have here before me. At the top of page 10, referring to future development, it says that although purchase, that is to say, compulsory acquisition, will be necessary in some cases, the Government's proposal is that control shall be operated, in the main, through the granting of consents or licences to develop; that is to say, that development shall take place in the main by private owners obtaining licences from the planning authorities and carrying out their own development in accordance with the scheme.
My right hon. Friend has said that one of the reasons for introducing the Bill is the difficulty of dealing with the multiplicity of owners and cutting through what he called the tangle of ownership, where it is necessary to deal with an area as a whole. In this instance, I would draw attention to the fact that he would have only one owner to deal with in one area. Is it not right and proper that, before the planning authority says: "We are going to take power to acquire your land under the Bill," the owner should be given an opportunity to carry out the work first? If the authority can prove that he is not able to do it or can show that he is unwilling or would take longer to carry it out than they would do, there is a good case for the compulsory acquisition of the land, so that the planning scheme can be carried out at the earliest possible moment. It is inconsistent with the expressed policy of His Majesty's Government that owners of land should not be given an opportunity to develop their land and I hope that my right hon. Friend will give this matter his consideration.

Mr. Bowles: I listened with very great interest to the arguments of the hon. and gallant Member. If the owners of large


estates are so much in advance of their local authority in regard to planning, why have they not carried it out already?

An Hon. Member: This relates to war damage.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Surely my hon. Friend knows that it is practically impossible to carry out any kind of work now, and since the damage has been caused during the war the landowner has had no opportunity to do the work.

Mr. Bowles: Nevertheless, the time will arrive. On this side of the House we know, and the hon. and gallant Member knows too, that these private owners do not operate their properties in the public interest.

Mr. Hugh Lawson: In moving the Amendment the hon. and gallant Member referred to an owner of land being prepared to develop much more quickly than the local authority, but I do not see any reference to that matter in the Amendment. I hope that the Minister will resist the Amendment, because if it were carried it would make it possible for the owner of a plot of land to offer to develop it and then to delay progress for a large number of years. That is the meaning of the words in the Amendment.

Sir J. Lamb: It relates to an area of extensive war damage.

Mr. Lawson: The point I am making is that the owner can, if he likes, delay redevelopment.

Sir J. Lamb: He can offer to do it.

Mr. Lawson: Yes, but under the Amendment there is no obligation upon him to carry it out, because the offer is sufficient. The Amendment would lead to dual control, the owner and the planning authority both doing the same thing at the same time. Taking the broad view of the requirements of a whole town, I cannot see how the owner of a piece of property can possibly work just on his own.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I am not suggesting that he should only make an offer to the planning authorities. The Amendment states clearly that he must be able and willing to carry out the work. I say that the owner should be given an opportunity first, before the land is acquired.

Captain Prescott: I support the Amendment. It may not apply in a great number of cases but I think—

It being Six of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE) (CHARGES)

Resolved:

"That the Milk Marketing (County of Moray) (Charges) Order, 1944, dated 20th July, 1941, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, a copy of which Order was presented on 27th July, be approved."—[Mr. Mabane.]

Orders of the Day — SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS

Resolved:

"That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the County Borough of West Bromwich, a copy of which Order was presented on 26th September, be approved."—[Mr. Peake.]

Resolved:

"That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Whitchurch (Salop), a copy of which Order was presented on 26th September, be approved."—[Mr. Peake.]

Orders of the Day — GOODS AND SERVICES (PRICE CONTROL)

6.3 p.m.

Mr. Gledhill: I beg to move,
That the Order, dated 20th June, 1944, entitled the Utility Apparel and Utility Cloth Orders (Amendment) Order, 1944, a copy of which was presented on 5th July. be annulled.
I move this for two main reasons. The first is that this Order is one of the first, if not the first, Order to be reported back to the House by the new Committee appointed for that purpose. I need not go into the reason for the appointment of that Committee; it is well known to the Parliamentary Secretary and to all hon. Members. Having formed a Committee whose purpose is to examine various Orders and Regulations we should be foolish and lacking in our duty if we did not attend to its reports. The second main reason I have is that having read


this Order I am practically unable to understand it, and just to make quite sure that it was not due to the fact that I am approaching the sere and yellow leaf stage, I took it up with many of my friends in the trade. They also say they found it very confusing and difficult to understand because of its references to other Orders and so on. The explanatory note at the end says that one of its objects is to fix a ceiling for wholesalers' and retailers' prices. I submit to the Parliamentary Secretary that if the price of these goods is too high the public will certainly not buy them. Therefore, the ceiling seems to be quite unnecessary. My final argument against this Order is that with the general improvement in the war situation we are approaching the time when many Orders and Regulations could and should be cancelled. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has had the courage to do so in many cases. He has altered the black-out Regulations, and he has cancelled quite a number of other Orders in the past few days. I suggest that is a very good example which the Board of Trade and even other Government Departments might follow. At any rate I submit this is not the time for a flood of new Orders.
I am certain that when this House agreed to the passing of the Defence Regulations it was not intended that so many thousands of Orders should be issued. I am equally certain that this Order is unnecessary, and that it is not doing anything to help the war effort. I am sure there is no necessity for me to make a long speech on this point. I want to give the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity of explaining this Order.

Sir Percy Harris: Does my hon. Friend suggest that the manufacturers should be allowed to charge what they like?

Mr. Gledhill: I said that if they charge too high prices, especially the retailers, the public will not buy the goods. I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree with me. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to satisfy us, and even, perhaps, to withdraw the Order.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to second the Motion.
The House will remember that on 18th July the Select Committee reported, drawing the attention of the House to the Order on two grounds: first, the ground that it makes a somewhat unusual and unexpected use of the powers conferred by the Defence Regulations, and, secondly, that its form calls for elucidation. The House will remember that when that Select Committee was set up, five grounds were specified on which the attention of the House might be called to any particular Order, and that at that time an instruction was also given to the Committee that, before drawing the attention of the House to any Order, an opportunity should be given to the Department of furnishing an explanation to the Committee of any unusual feature in the Order. In this case, presumably, the Committee, before making their report to the House, heard some representative of the Board of Trade. In those circumstances, it seems right to put down a Prayer, to give the Minister an opportunity of dealing with the observations made upon this Order by the Select Committee. It seems to me that the onus of justifying the Order lies on the Minister and that it is a somewhat heavy onus, having regard to the lack of success which attended his representative before the Select Committee. It does not seem to me that it would be my duty, or, indeed, my right, to seek to justify the conclusion of the Select Committee: it is for the Minister to justify the Order. I am ignorant of the ground on which the Committee acted. The Order referred to no fewer than eight other Statutory Rules and Orders. There is nothing unusual about that, although, in my view, it is undesirable. If one looks at the first two tables in the Order, one sees the words, over the First Schedule:
Amendments to Related Schedule No. to the Utility Apparel (Maximum Prices and Charges) Order, 1943.
I am not sure—perhaps the Minister can tell us—what is the precise legal significance of the words "Related Schedule." I thought that any Schedule of any Bill or any Order related to something which preceded it, and the term "Related Schedule" is somewhat of an anomaly to me. This Order, apparently, does not amend or cancel an existing Order, but merely amends a Related Schedule to that Order. When one looks at the contents of the table, one sees that the retailer's


percentage figure of the price paid on certain articles of clothing shall be 37·94 per cent., and on clothes judged by their sizes, 42.86 per cent. One can picture the difficulties of the small trader in making the necessary mathematical calculation. The second table deals with another Order. I do not think there is really much more that I need say in seconding this Motion, except to ask and to hope that the Minister will elucidate its form and justify the unusual and unexpected use of the powers conferred upon him, which was the opinion of the Select Committee.

6.11. p.m.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: When the House set up a Select Committee to examine Statutory Rules and Orders it did so in very precise terms and laid down with great exactitude what were the functions of the Select Committee. One of the duties enjoined upon the Select Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member, was that of reporting to the House anything unusual or unexpected in the Statutory Rules and Orders it had examined. In the course of carrying out those duties it came across this Order, which contained within it a reference to a "Related Schedule." That was to the members of the Committee, as it was to the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller), a novelty. It was unusual. It is true that it had appeared in Orders which had become law prior to the setting up of the Select Committee, but this was the first time that it had come to the notice of the Committee.
The Committee ascertained what, in fact, a "Related Schedule" was. I am not, in considering the Schedule, going to enter in any way into the merits or demerits of the substance of the "Related Schedule." Whether girls' utility blazers and raincoats, which are the subject matter of the "related Schedule," should or should not be controlled in price, or whether the price fixed is a proper one or not, I am not going to enter into at all, because it is clearly no part of the duty of the Committee to consider in any way the merits of the Statutory Rules and Orders. We did consider this unusual phrase "related Order," and we ascertained that the "related Order" was a device erected, not to confuse traders and

others affected by it, but a device worked out in order to simplify the legislation under which they must operate. Hon. Members will be aware that if prices are set out in a Schedule, and the Schedule has to be amended, the Schedule has to be reprinted with the Order. We ascertained that the Board of Trade had struck upon this device of a "Related Schedule" in order to sectionalise the various kinds of garments and trades which were affected. Obviously, the wholesaler in stockings would not be interested in the retail price of pots and pans, or of some other articles of clothing, and different Related Schedules were e set up. They are legal, as they are given valid force by the Order which creates them. Then, when it is desired, as in this case, to bring in a further related Schedule for utility articles, all that is necessary is to include a new related Schedule dealing direct, in this case with girls' utility blazers and raincoats, to print it and to make it available to those who are interested in girls' utility blazers and raincoats, and not to reprint prices of other types of garments which are of no considerable interest to those who make and sell girls' utility blazers and raincoats. It is no part of the function of the Committee in this Report to say whether we think it to be right or wrong. We have our own views and I may tell the House that we were satisfied that it was a very successful procedure, but that it was not, upon the terms of reference given to us by this House and the duty enjoined upon us by this House, our duty to report that fact to the House.
If the mover and seconder of the Prayer had been as assiduous in studying the Order and its meaning as they have been in studying the Order Paper and hastening, as the mover said, to put down a Prayer because this was the first time the Select Committee had reported anything to the House, this House would not have been troubled. I suggest that if any of the Members who put their names to this Prayer had asked anybody upon the Select Committee the meaning of the reference, they would have been amply satisfied. The Prayer is before the House and I trust that for the reasons I put forward, apart from any others which may lie upon the merits, that the House will reject the Prayer.

6.19 p.m.

Mr. Molson: The hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Gledhill) who moved this Prayer has dealt with the merits or demerits of the Statutory Order that was issued, and I personally think he will find it difficult to persuade the House that the accepted policy of fixing prices in war-time is unsound. It is well within the responsibility of the Board of Trade to exercise its control of prices, and for that reason I hope that the House will reject this Prayer. I would like to associate myself with what has been said by the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. M. Hughes) with regard to the position of the Select Committee upon this matter.

Mr. Speaker: We are not discussing the Select Committee but a particular Prayer.

Mr. Molson: May I have guidance on the point? The hon. Member in moving the Prayer suggested that because a Select Committee had drawn the attention of the House to this special Statutory Order, that in itself constituted a ground for moving this Prayer. I think on this first occasion it is desirable to rebut that argument which he has put forward. The Select Committee has certain terms of reference and it is obliged to draw the attention of the House to the Statutory Rules and Orders which, in its view, fall within four or five different categories. The only way in which the Select Committee can discharge the duty of being what has been called "a watch-dog committee is to draw the attention of hon. Members to Statutory Rules and Orders which fall into those categories. It would obviously be embarrassing if on every occasion when the attention of hon. Members was drawn to Statutory Rules and Orders, they regarded it as being an obligation upon them to put down a Motion for a Prayer. I hope, therefore, that the argument adduced by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Gledhill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) will not in future be regarded as a ground for putting down a Prayer. On the merits, as criticised by the hon. Member for Halifax, I hope that the House will reject the Prayer.

6.21 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): It seems to me that the arguments of the

opener have been already very adequately met. My hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) dealt effectively with one of his main arguments, that it was wrong to control prices in wartime. I think the House, however impatient it may be with certain controls, will agree that the control of prices at least is an absolutely essential control to have as long as the scarcity of consumers' goods exists. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Gledhill) said he was putting down this Prayer as this was the first Report from this Committee,' and as that first Report it is an occasion of some little constitutional importance. I myself think it possibly a pity that a better opportunity had not been found for praying against an Order because, as was so clearly explained by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes), this is not one of those provisions which is a confuser of the trader, but is rather one designed to make the task of the trader easier. This utility scheme of ours necessitates a very large number of intricate Schedules dealing with the prices of large ranges of items of clothing. Some of those items are dealt with by one trader, others by another trader; for example, a man's hosier does not deal normally with ladies' stockings, and those who deal in outer-wear often do not deal in underwear.
If, therefore, with the original Order we had printed the whole of the necessary Schedules there would have been a volume of great size. I have here, in fact, this collection of the eight Related Schedules to the original Order. We therefore devised the plan, both for saving printing and paper and for the convenience of the trader, of splitting these Schedules up into sections, so that any trader interested would buy the section that he needed and not the sections which he did not need. That, maybe, was unusual, although it is a practice which we at the Board of Trade adopted some twelve months ago, and Orders with related Schedules have lain unnoticed on the Table on several occasions. It may, too, have been unexpected, but I do suggest to the House that it was not an undesirable innovation and that therefore this Prayer should be rejected.

Mr. Gledhill: In view of the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — OFFICERS' WIDOWS (PENSION CLAIMS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.)

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: This is not the first time or the second, it is the third time, that I have ventured to raise this subject. The first time was in the Debate on War Pensions, when, no doubt owing to pressure of time, I received no answer to the point from the Parliamentary Secretary. On the second occasion I put two Questions to the Minister, and although the answers to them were not entirely satisfactory to me they did contain some slight encouragement. The third time is to-day, and I hope I shall not again be disappointed. I want to raise the question of the position of the widows of officers who before their serving husbands died were separated from them in circumstances which make it clear that the husbands were at the time of the separation, and the time of death, under a legal liability to maintain their wives. As the Minister said in answer to one of the Questions I put to him, there can be very few of those cases. That seems to be no argument for not doing something about it if a serious injustice or anomaly can be shown to exist.
The present position, as I understand it, under the existing regulations with regard to such a widow is as follows: She cannot receive a pension unless she can show that for six months preceding the death, or such other period as to the Minister may seem reasonable, her husband was contributing to her support. If she can show that, she gets a pension. She also gets a pension if she can show that she had obtained either a maintenance order or a separation order, that she is entitled to payments thereunder, that she has been receiving payment for six months preceding the death, or such other period as the Minister may stipulate, or that if she has not been receiving those payments she has been taking reasonable steps to obtain payment. It follows from the regulations that she will not get a pension unless she can show either a contribution or an order from the police court and that she is trying to enforce payment. It also follows from the regulations that if her husband left her, and she

was trying to get an order through the police court at the time he died, she would not be entitled to a pension if he left her in circumstances which left him under a legal liability to maintain her. If, therefore, while she was trying to establish that liability in a court of law, he was killed, she would get no pension.
Secondly, if her husband left her and promised to make her an allowance but did not pay that allowance throughout the six months preceding death, she would get no pension. That seems to be wrong. She would get no pension even although her husband was drawing marriage allowance from the War Office. That seems to be the position. Of course, if she were the widow of a soldier of another rank that marriage allowance would be paid direct to her, and it could be argued on her behalf that she was receiving contribution from her husband. In those circumstances there could be no doubt that she would receive a pension. But in the case of an officer, where the marriage allowance is paid direct to him, the payment of marriage allowance does not have that consequence. I have never understood why the allowance is not paid direct to officers' wives. I have yet to meet an officer who would have any objection to that being done, but the consequence of not paying the allowance to the officer's wife has been in a case of which I know—and it may be in many other cases—that the wife, when she has become a widow, does not get a pension which she would have got if her husband had not taken a commission. That is quite wrong; it is quite wrong that a woman, whose husband was legally liable to maintain her, should be penalised if she has not, while her husband was serving, dragged him through the police court. If there is no contribution, under the Regulations she must show that she has a separation or a maintenance order entitling her to payment. I do not know why that stipulation is put in.
There must be many women who have sincere objections to taking their domestic troubles into a court of law, there must be many who have religious objections to doing so, and there must be many who realise that any step of that sort may destroy any chance of reconciliation with their husbands. We know of the procedure under the Army Council Instruction with regard to bringing about a re-


conciliation. If the wife of an officer who leaves her without warning waits, hoping that he will come back, and does not take any step to bring the matter before a police court, and he is killed, the Minister has to say, "I cannot give her a pension because of the Regulations". That seems to me to be quite wrong. Not only has she to show that she has an order but she has to show that she is not receiving payment under it and that she is taking reasonable steps to enforce payment. That seems to me to mean that the wife of an officer serving in Burma who has obtained a separation or maintenance order ordering him to make payment will not get a pension unless she can also show that, while he was serving in Burma, she has been pressing him for payment. I submit that that, too, is quite wrong.
This matter came to my notice through an actual case which I should like to state. An officer left his wife without warning and, as I understand, without cause, in November, 1938. His wife hoped he would return. In the summer of 1939 he was interviewed by the wife's father, a gentleman whose veracity cannot be doubted. He has written me a letter in which he says the husband stated that he was fully prepared to pay his wife an allowance each year for her maintenance if he did not return to her. Would any wife after that take proceedings in a police court? Would not any wife who was fond of her husband hope, in view of those last words, that he might still return? In May, 1940, the officer was killed. He had been drawing the marriage allowance from the War Office. Application has been made for a pension on many occasions but it has always been refused because of these regulations. I submit that it is about time they were altered so as to do justice in a number of cases which, as the Minister says, must be very few. In answer to a Question last July the Minister said he was always prepared to reconsider any matter where he thought it would be to the advantage of the applicant. There has been time for reconsideration. I cannot but feel that any reconsideration, if made with an open and unprejudiced mind, would be to the advantage of this small class of persons.
If I may make a suggestion, I should have thought that the proper rule would have been that the officer's widow should be entitled to a pension where she was

separated from her husband if she could establish to the satisfaction of the Minister that at the time of the death the husband was under a legal liability to maintain her and, if you like, had acknowledged that liability either by a statement admitting it to someone else or by drawing the marriage allowance. That should suffice. It may be necessary, perhaps, to impose a time limit, and to say that there must be some such acknowledgment of liability or some proof of liability within 12 months preceding the husband's death. Of one thing I feel convinced, and that is that these Regulations should not be allowed to remain in their present state. I hope that after the time that has elapsed since I raised this question the Minister will be able to announce some concession to this small class of persons.

6.37 p.m.

Captain Cobb: In view of the fact that this matter was raised by my hon. Friend as long ago as early last July, I am surprised that my right hon. Friend has done nothing to put the matter right. He really must adopt the suggestion which my hon. Friend has made. It must, I imagine, be a matter of real distress to my right hon. Friend to think that Regulations have been so drawn that they can make such an unjust discrimination against a wife who has been left by her husband. To my mind these Regulations are, in effect, a condonation of the husband's inexcusable behaviour. I rose to endorse everything my hon. Friend said and to press my right hon. Friend to make the concessions that have been asked for.

6.38 p.m.

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): I am sure that every Member will sympathise with me in having to deal with this difficult question. The Minister of Pensions has many difficult tasks to perform and many difficult problems to try to solve. Of all those tasks I should say that the question of the separated wife has perhaps given me the most trouble. Therefore, I am glad my hon. Friend has raised this question and has given me the opportunity of explaining the position. He referred to that part of the Royal Warrant which deals with the separated wife, and it is not necessary for me to quote it because he has given a fair representation of the words. I want it to be thoroughly understood that


there is no question of a pension being refused to a separated wife merely because she did not hold a court order against her husband. Where there has been genuine support a pension is awarded, even though the support may have been arranged privately between the two parties. That is to say, it is not necessary for the woman to go to court. If she has documentary evidence, such as a letter from the man saying he is prepared to support her, and then he is ordered abroad and has not a chance to put his promise into operation, I shall have to take that as a clear indication of his intentions.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: May I interrupt the Minister for one moment, although I am very reluctant to do so? There is one aspect of the case which he has not already considered. I showed him a letter from the father-in-law of the husband, which revealed quite clearly that the man had promised payment of this allowance. Then the husband went overseas.

Sir W. Womersley: I am coming to the particular case in a moment or two. I have given the closest possible care and attention to the case, but I want to deal with the general position first.
Even if some contribution has been made by the husband without any special order, I always take that into account, and say that that is a good enough ground for me on which to award a pension. Of course, where a wife holds a court order and has taken all reasonable steps within her power to get her husband to comply with it, I must award a pension. Where a wife is living apart front her husband, and if she has made really serious but fruitless efforts to obtain support from him, I deal with that case sympathetically.
I have to deal with rank and file cases as well as with officers' cases and, as my hon. and gallant Friend has stated, in the case of the rank and file the allowance is paid direct to the wife. If the man has given notice to the Pay Office that they should no longer pay over that money to the wife, we have to bear that in mind, also. I would remind the House that in many cases the man is justified in so doing, on the evidence that he has. I have to be very careful very often in try-

ing to meet what appears to be a hard case because we might make a regulation that would not be justified in dealing with the whole of these cases. If a rank and file member of the Forces withdraws his allowance, that is clear evidence that he does not intend to support his wife, for some reason that he holds is good.
In the case of the officer the money is not paid direct to the wife, so we cannot take that as evidence. It is paid to the officer, If he is not manly enough to give it over to his wife, and that fact comes to the notice of the authorities, they not only stop the payment of it, but make him refund whatever he has received and has not handed over to his wife. The cases in which this happens are very rare but we feel that when any officer has received money for a special purpose, such as to support his wife and family, we must see to it that his wife and family get that money. In dealing with these cases, I have to take into, consideration the circumstances. It is true that we have to work according to Regulations, and while we can stretch those Regulations we cannot break them. I should be doing wrong if I did. It is also true that this House can amend Regulations if it thinks fit. Personally, I suggest that the Regulations are working all right and that it would be very unwise to interfere with them. They give me a certain amount of discretion in dealing with cases.
In regard to this particular case my hon. and gallant Friend knows, because we have discussed it privately, and now we are discussing it publicly, that I have tried ways and means of helping. The case is this. As my hon. and gallant Friend stated, the husband was a regular officer in the Army—a point which was not made—and it was in November, 1938, that the separation took place. I have no knowledge, and neither has my hon. and gallant Friend, of the cause of the separation, but it happened, the lady went back to her father and the husband made no contribution whatever to her support. She took no steps to get him to do so.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am sorry to interrupt the Minister again, but surely he will recollect I informed him of the wife's account of the separation, and the facts disclosed by her made it quite clear that the husband would be under legal liability to maintain her?

Sir W. Womersley: I do not remember that. I was under the impression that neither the hon. Member nor I knew the facts that brought about the separation, but I accept his correction. Here is the point I want the House to remember. It took place in November, 1938. Then in the summer of 1939 the husband was invited by his wife's father—and I have seen a letter which was sent by the wife's father to the War Office at the time when the officer was posted as missing, and therefore had not come under my Department, when he was asking for an allowance to be made to his daughter during the time the officer was posted as missing. He wrote a letter in which he said that he had interviewed the officer, and the officer had made a promise to make some provision for her. I asked my hon. Friend whether that would be accepted as evidence in court. That is not documentary evidence showing that the officer intended to contribute. If he had written a letter to his wife it would have been helpful to me. But no. In a letter that was sent to my Department by the wife she says quite definitely she had no documentary evidence, nothing except what her father had reported to her, that her husband had promised to make some provision for her. No steps were taken to implement the promise. I should have thought the father could have asked the husband to put in writing what his offer was. That would have been the sound and proper thing to do.

Captain Cobb: She had this bit of evidence, that a Government Department had recognised his liability to support his wife by giving him a wife's allowance.

Sir W. Womersley: I did not want to mention this; I did not want to drag these things into the light of day but perhaps as no name has been mentioned I can do so since that point has been raised. The fact is that the officer got this money under false pretences. He got it for his wife, and did not send it to his wife. It might be said, "Why did the War Office allow that to go on?" It was because they presumed that the officer would act honourably and hand the money over to his wife.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The Minister has used a very harsh term about an officer. Is there any evidence to show that he was not intending to make an

allowance per year, as stated in the letter to his father-in-law? Is there any evidence at all that he obtained this money by false pretences? There may be evidence that he did not pay it over during the rest of his life, but surely there is not a shred of evidence that he got the money by false pretences?

Sir W. Womersley: Really, the hon. Member cannot get away with that. This money is drawn monthly, and if it is suggested that when a man draws money monthly from the War Office, or some other Government Department, and then keeps it to the end of the year, before he sends it to his wife, that that is keeping his wife, I say it is not doing so, at any rate in the way she ought to be kept. If the officer had survived, he would have had to repay that money to the War Office because he had not done what was expected; he did not hand it to his wife after receiving it. No steps were taken to implement the promise that was made to the father. There is no documentary evidence of any kind on which I can act, and I am advised, and I have to take advice from those who have full experience of the law and the working of regulations, that the time having elapsed—the wife stated it was in 1939 when he was interviewed, and it was in 1940 that he was posted as missing and it was in 1943 when the case had to come to my notice—some attempt should have been made after the promise which the wife's father said was made to him, either to get a private arrangement whereby some contribution would be made to the wife's support, or, if that was not possible, if he still refused to do that, then legal proceedings should have been taken so that the wife should have been receiving what was her legal due.
On these facts, I am not in a position to grant a pension. This may be a hard case—there are no children: this is a young woman, but still she has lost her husband. But the principle laid down is that a woman should not be allowed to gain financially by the death of her husband. She had the opportunity during his lifetime and for another 18 months—not six months—for her to take proceedings, either through a lawyer, by a private arrangement, or through an application to court—because even an application to court would have justified me in granting a pension. I feel that the position is clear. There is no sug-


gestion of a very difficult case in this matter, because I remember that she explained that there was some difficulty between them on a matter which I should not have considered really serious, but people do have quarrels sometimes over very trivial things. This is quite different from some of the matters that I have to deal with. If I break the Regulations in a case like this, where shall I be in dealing with some of the other matters in respect of which I am quite sure hon. Members will not expect me to make an award? I am sure hon. Members will know what I mean. The bulk of cases of separated wives are cases of great difficulty, in which I should not be justified in making an award. I have given the fullest possible consideration to this case. If I could have found a reasonable loophole I would have seen that the woman got the benefit of the doubt, but in this case, with the Regulations as they are—and I cannot suggest for a moment that they should be altered—I cannot stretch them to bring the case into pension.

6.53 p.m.

Mr. Petherick: Frankly, I am not quite happy about the explanation given by my right hon. Friend. It is said that hard cases make bad law and that, generally speaking, is true, because in doing justice to the few you may often do greater injustice to the many. But in this case I find it difficult

to understand how if the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) were accepted you would do injustice to anybody and you would do justice to an unknown number of widows not now getting any form of pension. In his examination my right hon. Friend has not taken into account what I believe to be one of the basic principles of English law, that the husband is under a legal obligation to maintain his wife. Although any given husband may not for a time maintain his wife as he should, it may be that, after their difficulties were overcome and they had come together again, as thousands do every year, he might then have proceeded to maintain his wife as he should. Therefore, I think that the Minister, in coming to the conclusion that he has come to, may have forgotten that he is depriving a widow, at the worst, of what would be her legal right, a legal right which is not lost because her husband has, been killed or has died. It is not right for my right hon. Friend to shelter—

It being half an hour after the conclusion of Business exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order, as modified for this Session by the Order of the House of 25th November.

Adjourned accordingly at Five Minutes before Seven o'Clock.